


Inkopolis In The Morning

by Gale_Breeze



Series: Into The Light [1]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: F/F, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-07 07:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15213986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gale_Breeze/pseuds/Gale_Breeze
Summary: After escaping what probably should've been certain death, Agent Three is not allowed to sleep. She is instead asked to babysit an Octoling, stop the Captain from committing murder, figure out the exact scope of what the hell happened this morning, and try not to murder Agent 4.She can probably do all of that except the last one.





	1. 6 AM - Agent Three's Terrible Morning

Three felt like hell. She was reasonably certain her body had grown bones for the sole purpose of making them ache.

Her back hurt like crazy, wrists hurt as well, and pushing herself up off the ground was painful enough it was all she could do to sit up. That done, she began to take stock of the situation at hand. Something was bound to go wrong at some point, and she was pretty sure it'd be her that would have to deal with it. Because that was just life, these days.

Okay. So. Ruined statue down in the bay. Probably the facility they'd just been in. That was... Some level of promising? On the one hand, it probably meant that it was one more of the Professor's creations off the list. On the other hand, it probably meant that a good six months worth of investigations and leads had just gone up in smoke. Along with like eighty percent of her gear.

Captain is alive. Good. Agents One and Two won't bury her alive so she wouldn't respawn. He also looked a bit more... Jumpy? Something was off about the old man. Hopefully not something that would get him hurt... His DISD was bad enough without anything else stacking on top of it. She'd feel super guilty if this adventure got him hurt badly.

Next to him were two... People? An Inkling and an Octoling. She vaguely recalled them, some trashy pop duo. Three hated most modern music with the exception of Calamari Inkantation, and even that was only because she liked Agents One and Two. They were apparently famous these days... Off the Chain? Off the Band? Off the... Shorts? Three was gonna be really clear here – she did not know who the hell they were.

And then there was the Octoling. Sitting there. Smiling. Like they had anything to smile about. It was cold and probably like barely five in the morning and Three really wanted to just go home and sleep for a century. Three guessed she was kind of interesting. Two light red tentacles framed her face, while a pair of white irises danced in her eyes. Would've been more interesting if she didn't look like a reject from an old 80s movie. Seriously? Black leather and heels? Geez.

The moment the girl saw Three get up, she moved over to the edge of the platform and stared up at the sky. Her legs were kicking wildly as she did so, the pop duo moving to sit next to her. “Man,” the pink one said loudly. “I can't believe our luck! We saved the world AND we got up early enough to see the sunrise!”

The green one giggled. “Oh, is that all?” She poked a delicate nail into the pink one's cheek. “Here I was thinking the world saving was the interesting part.”

Cuttlefish patted the other Octoling on the shoulder. “Good job, Agent Eight!” What. “We'd all be toast if you hadn't helped ink that entire statue!” Three is sort of interested in what the hell the old man is talking about but also Three is working off her concussion and wants to go home. The four of them line up closely on the edge of the platform and stare out at Inkopolis, framed by the orange sun rising behind it.

Three walked to the other side of the platform and away from the conversation. Best not to be too distracted by their talk. She sat down and reached into her suit, searching for the old handcloth and toolset she knew was there. It was windy, but she could deal. Calling on repetition and skill, she swiftly pulled the Hero Shot apart piece by piece and rested the parts in front of her. Clean them off with the cloth, scrape out the dirt and gunk with the chisel, screw and bolt it back together with the screwdriver and wrench.

It was relaxing and took her mind off of everything. Plus, it wasted the time it took to get back to dry land. Three wasn't exactly eager to keep standing on a platform hanging over the ocean. Her repair job was interrupted by the Octoling – Eight, the Captain had called them, clever – walking over and staring at the pieces. “Can I help you?”

“I've never seen a shooter like this before...” she murmured. “Weighted handle, looks like. Top mounted ink canister? Doesn't look like it'd work, but obviously does. Perhaps speeds up shot rate? Nozzle is interesting. Vents at the side reduces spray, creates cleaner shots...” Was she. Was she figuring out how her gun worked by looking at the pieces? Wow. Okay. That was impressive. The only other person she'd met with that skill was Sheldon.

Three glanced across the platform and at the Captain. The Captain was nodding at her. He thought the Octoling was trustworthy? That was... Interesting. She'd have to look into that at some point in the near future. At the very least, it made sure that either she was an impossibly skilled manipulator or she was definitively on their side. Good to know. “You know gear?”

“Yes. My former occupation as a...” She paused and took a calming breath. “As a member of the Octarian army... Was a combat specialist.” Would explain how she managed to make Three fight so hard before they got knocked down into the facility. “I'm something of a Shooter nut.”

“Oh yeah? More of a Roller, myself...” Three picked up the ink canister and slotted it into the main body of the Hero Shot. “Would use a Brush, but they don't have enough stopping power for my liking.” Screw it in, make sure to get it close...

Eight nodded excitedly. “Oh, yeah. I know the feeling. Octo Shots are great and all, but sometimes they hand us an Octo Blaster? And sure, the principle is the same, pull the trigger to shoot, but I can never judge the distance right.” Oh man, speaking her language. “Either too short or too far. It's the only weapon type I can think of that I didn't get fully certified for.”

“Blasters are the worst up here. There's like eighty kinds and they're all terrible.” The handle slid into the body of the gun and clicked in. “Sure, some people can use 'em, but they're all a pain to deal with. They actually made and sold like six variants of the standard Blaster because the original one was awful. Extended range, faster fire, lower damage, you name it.”

Eight laughed. It was a fairly nice laugh. Three didn't even notice, but she got so sucked into conversation with Eight that she barely noticed as they arrived at the mainland, and a whole hour had passed seemingly in no time. It was actually kind of unfair... Eight knew her stuff, and Three desperately wanted to pick her brain.

The pop stars who Three still didn't know the names of said their goodbyes, assuring Eight they'd come see her the moment they had time. Apparently they were the new faces of Inkopolis News? Talk about a downgrade. There had been a lot of hugs shared between the two and Eight. They were one of very few friendly voices in the Metro, so... Couldn't blame them there. Three would've given anything for the Captain mumbling in her ear down there.

The Captain mentioned that he had to go check in on Agents One and Two, figure out why they weren't responding to any of his texts. Three shuddered at the idea that the Captain now knew how to text people. No longer would they be safe from the onslaught of bad jokes. There was no barrier now. Nowhere was safe. He did ask that Three keep an eye on Eight for a couple of hours until he could come back and interview the Octoling properly.

Three was okay with that idea. Even if she was trustworthy, any information on the Octarians they could muster was desperately needed.

So there they were. Middle of Inkopolis, an Octoling and an Inkling walking through the sunrise. They probably had like two hours or so before the crowds started coming out in full proper force to irritate her. What to do, what to do... It would've been easier if Eight hadn't been darting around to stare at every single thing on the street.

“Hey, aren't you tired?” Three felt tired. It was unfair that Eight didn't.

“I am,” Eight replied as she pressed her face to a window. Some kind of toy store. Soft toys and action figures. Did Octarians not have this stuff? Would explain a lot. “But I'm too excited to let something as meaningless as sleep get me down!” God that was relatable. “There's so many interesting things to look at!”

“Well... You're up here on the surface now. You have the rest of your life to see all of it.”

The girl stopped. She turned and looked directly into Three's eyes. Suddenly, she was too close and wrapping her arms around Three. “Thank you. For saving me.”

Oh. Well. Um. What was she supposed to say to that? Sure, no problem? You're welcome? Forget about it? Shit, what would a hero say? No, scratch that. What would a normal well adjusted person say to that? Uhhhh turn it back on her! Make it about her! Ignore yourself! YES. BEST PLAN. Agent Three is made of good plans.

“You got that goop off me,” Three said confidently as she ignored the terrified shrieking in her head. “Fair is fair.” Eight made a noise. It was vague and general enough that Three had no idea what the hell it meant. Three got a lot of those noises.

Eight let go and smiled brightly. Three may have gone blind temporarily. “Yes. But you saved me before I saved you. So thank you.”

Three looked away. “Anyways... You hungry? You may not be tired, but fighting can definitely work up an appetite.” The suggestion made the girl in front of her light up so much Three was reasonably sure they could've replaced her with the Great Zapfish and there would be no difference between the two. “Alright, come on. I'm pretty sure I know a place opening around this time in the morning... I think I've got a few tickets...”

Walking to Inkopolis Square was weird. It was called a square, but it also occupied this weird space in the city where the only way in was through a small gate on the west side. Shopkeepers got keys to the space, same with the Squidforce representative who booted up the lobby for Turf War. At the very least, her bud should be there.

The Square was quiet this time of day. Probably because most Inklings were lazy by nature, so nobody would be awake until seven, seven-thirty. Eight at the earliest. And the Lobby wasn't unlocked until eight on the dot, so very few people would be here until then. Three wasn't the biggest fan of the Square. Too blocky and weird for her tastes. The only saving grace that the place had was the one, the only, the man the _myth_ the _**legend**_...

“Hey, kiddos! You're here early!” **CRUSTY SEAN**. The best boy. The best dude. The baddest man this side of the oceans. “Mornin' ta both of ya. Ya caught me settin' up shop. Thought I was gonna have ta wait until eight before the customers started showin' up. Proved me wrong!”

“Morning Sean,” Three said with as much confidence as she could muster. Man. Crusty Sean. He was so cool! He was the coolest shoesalesman Three had ever met, and just threw all that out the window to start up his own food van. She wished she had the guts to go through with a dream like that the way he did. He was just. So cool. _SO COOL_. “Thought we'd drop by for a bite.”

“At this hour?” Sean reached up in his van and pushed out the solar panels. “Were you workin' late today T? 'Cause I'm gonna be real honest squiddo, you look like shell.” Three felt it. But part of keeping the walls between Agents and civilians to keep them safe was lying your ass off so hard it bounced. Unfortunately, Sean was really good at uncovering lies. So the solution here is to only lie halfway, and let exhaustion cover for her.

Three stretched. “Yeah, kinda. Only got done a couple of hours back. Feels like I blacked out once or twice, but I'm good.”

Sean made a noise that indicated disbelief.

Three hated noises that indicated disbelief.

“If ya want anything, it's gonna be a minute or two. I gotta heat up the deepfrier.” Sean looked directly at her. “Come around front, as long as ya got the tickets, I'll cook up anything.” Thank god. Three had checked her jacket earlier, and she did have tickets on her. Ironically, her job as a soldier fighting an entire army nearly single-handedly felt more safe than her daytime job as a weapons tester in a secure building.

“Tickets?” Eight asked.

“Yeah,” Three replied casually. “Sean makes quality food, but all of his food requires the tickets to get any of it. If you get a ticket, free meal. Or drink.” It was a promotional thing. First week of Inkopolis Square being a thing, he'd given out free meals and drink. After that, he said you could only get some sweet treats if you could get a ticket somewhere. The tickets were specially marked to make sure you didn't try to sneak fake ones in. Incidentally, there were a lot of products that advertised as having Crust Bucket tickets in one of every hundred samples.

Not coincidentally, many Inklings spent much of their money buying lots of that product.

“You mean these?” And then, like she didn't even notice the magnitude of what she was doing, pulled a stack of tickets from her weird as hell Ink Tank and held them out in front of her. Three was dead. She had to be. What sort of nonsense was this. She'd been hoarding tickets since Sean opened this damn shop. She only had ten Meal tickets, and twelve Drink tickets, having spent very few of the tickets as sparingly as possible.

And then little Miss Moneybags here just. Pulls out a stack. A full goddamn stack. Just pulls out a full stack of tickets. Like it was nothing. Three did not scream. She didn't. You're a goddamn liar. Who lies. Because they're friends with Miss Moneybags. BECAUSE THEY'RE BOTH LIARS.

“I. What.”

Eight nodded as she flipped through them. “I didn't even think these were useful. I thought maybe they were rewards for employees instead of test subjects? But whatever, I have a bunch. I got them from the vending machine.” The what machine. “I also got a bunch of coins from it, I think they're good to use? Oh, and I got some rock thingies with pictures on them too, but I dunno what good those things could be.”

Three did not strangle Eight on the spot and she thinks she should get a medal for that. “That. That's. That's great,” she hissed. “Good on you.”

“Which one do you think I should use?” she asked. “I never used any of these before.” Three breathed in deeply and breathed out. Never mind. She could ask about that later. Right now, Eight had a question. And Three was trying not to be a jerk right now, so she should answer it.

“Lemme see.” Eight handed the stack over to Three and looked over her shoulder. Sifting through the stack, it was... A lot. She had ten tickets for the Galactic Shwaffle and Galactic Seanwich each, twelve Quick-Jump Oranges, nineteen (What the hell) tickets for Mark-Shaker Cocoa, around six Swim-Speed Apples, nine Main-Saver Lemons... What the hell. She could buy every item on the menu five times over and still have tickets. “This is absurd. How much effort did you have to put in for these things?”

The girl besides her shrugs. “Not much? I nearly ran out of points at one point, and I noticed that some tests gave more points than it cost to take them? Marina said I spent three hours getting free points out of Girl Power Station, and it cost like fifteen thousand to earn a reward... The test only took a minute thirty... Yeah, it was pretty easy.”

Three made a note to ask this... Marina person if they had any video footage of the place Eight was talking about. If only to save their own ego. “Right... Well. You can get anything on the menu. So whichever one you want, you can get.” Eight made a delighted sound and stared at the menu on the side of the van.

Three gave her back her tickets and observed her own pitiful stack. She had eleven Run-Speed Tomato tickets, which she didn't even like but like hell she was gonna give them away, one specially kept Sub-Saver Berry ticket, four Deep-Fried Shwaffle tickets, two Crusty Seanwich tickets, three Super Seanwich tickets and one (1) Galactic Seanwich ticket. Yes, it was a fortune in the size of her collection. But compared to Eight? She felt like a pauper.

“Uuum... I want aaaa... Mark-Shaker Cocoa and, um, a Triple-Fried Galactic Shwaffle,” Eight said rather loudly as she handed over the tickets for it. “Three, what do you want? I'll pay for you!”

“I have my own tickets, don't worry.”

Eight growled. “You saved my life! And MC Cuttlefish!” Oh god, what? MC what?! “So I want to help you! Even if it's just using these tickets!”

“Urgh. I don't like imposing.”

“Nope. No getting out of it,” Eight threatened. “I am going to buy you breakfast. Got it?” Why did Octarians always have to threaten? Seriously, they needed to get a brand new gimmick. It was starting to get old. “So choose.”

Three looked at the menu. “Galactic Seanwich and a Special-Charge Shake,” she sighed. “But that is it, got it? No buying me stuff after this!” Eight ignored her and handed over the tickets to Sean, who looked vaguely sympathetic but also seemed to be laughing at Three for being threatened over eating food. Well. Never meet your idols, kids. They always disappoint.

“You got it, kiddo.” Almost immediately, the sizzling of meat and batter started behind the counter. Even if he was a jerk for laughing at her, Crusty Sean was a professional above all else. And Three could respect that sort of drive. Even if it was directed at her.

Eight smiled prettily, in the way that you saw rich girls on TV smile when something went their way. “Are you gonna take off that Ink Tank?” Three asked. Eight glanced at the chrome and black device on her back. It practically screamed evil and nightmare. That she hadn't ditched it yet was odd. “Carrying a Tank for more than an hour isn't really advised. Bad for your back.” A moment passed where a miserable look crossed her face. She reached up to the shoulder strap, let her hand hover over the leather, and then dropped it.

“... I could. But I won't. It. Hurts.” Um. Okay? That had multiple awful sounding implications and Three liked none of them, let's be real here. “Maybe later.” And if that wasn't a definitive 'Stop Asking' answer, Three had never heard one. They leaned against the side of the truck in an awkward silence for a moment. Not many places they could go from there.

After a few more minutes, Sean whistled. “Grub's up! Have fun, kiddos!” Oh thank god.

Eight drooled at the sight of her sugar-laden doom, sudden sadness forgotten. Three was like ninety percent sure that Eight was gonna die if she ate the Shwaffle combined with the Cocoa, and it was gonna be hilarious. See, that's why Three is the smart member of the Squidbeak Splatoon. She doesn't order a heart attack meal.

Both of them picked up their meals, said thanks to Crusty Sean, and moved over to one of the tables scattered nearby. The Shwaffle towered over both of them, a monument to hubris. A tower of waffles sandwiched between plateaus of ice cream, with four shrimps pointing out of the peak in all four directions. The frost of the north, the shrimp of the east, the heat of the south and the madness of the west. These things coalesced into a solid form, the Triple-Fried Galactic Shwaffle. Few tried to make this meal. Fewer succeeded.

Meanwhile, Three's simple hotdog covered in sauce was much easier to eat. It could be held in one hand for one thing. Crunchy, too. Mm. Three sat there and watched Eight attempt to make a serious dent in the side of her own arrogance. Warm and delicious, was the Galactic Seanwich. A flavour bomb shot straight from the heavens, Three knew that she had made the right choice of meal. By the time Eight had a solid approach going, Three was already done and moved onto her drink. Mm, milkshakes were great.

She seemed happy, with her miserable lot. The fate of a poor fool who has chosen to take the harshest road through life. Her eyes were wide with wonder, almost sparkling in a way. A smile wider than anything a shark could pull off cleanly split her face. Bits of chocolate were stuck to her cheeks along with ice cream. Like a kid in a candy store. Which, Three supposed, she really was.

While said Octoling was attacking her food, Three's phone rang.

 **Marina** **– 7:52 AM**

hey! is 8 with you?

**You – 7:53 AM**

who is this

**Marina – 7:53 AM**

what

how

marina?

half of off the hook

pearlie and i only have a few minutes until we go to air so

text it is

 

**You – 7:53 AM**

never heard of you

as it turns out i only listen to decent music

like mariana mystery

**Marina – 7:53 AM**

are you serious

mariana mystery is from almost sixty years ago

you dont remember me?

i was on the platform with you?

**You - 7:54 AM**

and?

**Marina - 7:54 AM**

my tentacles were green?

i was with pearl?

you watched us have that big farewell hug?

 

**You - 7:54 AM**

oh

youre the boring one

yeah 8 is with me

why?

**Marina - 7:54 AM**

is she dealing with the surface alright?

the first time i was up here i almost died ten times within an hour

**You - 7:55 AM**

she might be alright

hard to tell

i think shes trying to kill herself with a shwaffle

she got the biggest one on the menu

Three took a picture and sent it.

**Marina - 7:55 AM**

Oh my god.

Is she still alive?

**You - 7:55 AM**

probably

well see

later

 

Eight started noisily scooping ice cream into her mouth by using one waffle as a plate and her spoon as a barrier. "Om. Mmhmghmmhgghmgm. Mghgm, mmhg. Mmghmg, mgh."

 

"Use your words."

 

Eight swallowed and laughed. "Delicious! So good! It's way better than nutrition blocks!"

 

Three didn't really know what the hell to say to that. She didn't have to either, as her phone rang again in short order.

 

**CaptainCuttlefish - 7:56 AM**

Where are you?

 

**You - 7:56 AM**

ink square

watching 8 kill themself with ice cream

strangely entrancing

 

**CaptainCuttlefish - 7:57 AM**

Should be manhole nearby.

Get here now.

You need to stop me from committing murder.

 

... Great. "Alright, come on." Eight scooped up the last of her shwaffle somehow, having conquered the tallest mountain, and then downed her entire drink in under a minute. Oooh, Three could see this trainwreck coming from a mile away. This was gonna be hysterical. "We're heading to Squidbeak HQ. Apparently it moved."

 

"Ooh! I always wanted to see a wretched gate of darkness!" Eight chirped as the sugar hit her system like a Charger round.

 

"... Somebody better be having a worse day than me."

 


	2. 8 AM - Agent Three's Terrible Morning Continues

Agent Three did not ask for much.  
  
She liked to think that was her one good trait. That she didn't ask for much.  
  
Her apartment was pretty shitty, yeah. But that was fine, since she only ever slept in there. A bed, a wardrobe, a fridge, a proper kettle, a microwave, a sofa and a laptop. All she needed to live. The paint was flakey, the carpet hadn't been changed or removed since the sixties and it was generally in a bad neighbourhood overall, but she could deal with that. Sometimes the walls creaked a bit and it was drafty in winter and it was definitely a depressing place to look at, but you know what? She was fine with that.  
  
So when Three did ask for things, they were necessities. Agent Two asked her what she should get for Three's birthday. Three didn't need a TV, or a stereo system or fancy clothing or anything like that. But she had needed a new microwave after her last one decided to melt in on itself, so she'd asked for that. Agent Two said that Three was a depressingly simple person to buy for, and then bought her a TV anyway. Because the thing you had to know about Agent Two was that she was a really big asshole.  
  
Because of this, Three liked to think that when she led Eight into the grate leading to Mount Nantai and  recited a prayer to Sephahlo, She who bears the titles many, Trickster and Mother and Guardian and Destroyer all, She Who Draws The Last Breath, that when Three asked for this one simple thing, this one little thing, that it happen.  
  
Her request was "Please don't let this be a shitshow."  
  
Agent Three did not ask for much.  
  
And yet.  
  
Agent Three is still let down.  
  
The sewer grate entrance was one of six across the city. There was the Valley entrance in the Plaza, the Canyon entrance in the Square, the Cavern entrance near Port Mackerel, the Ridge entrance in the MakoMart parking lot, the Basin entrance under Piranha Pit and the Lake entrance just two minutes away from Clownfish Park. There used to be two more, but she and the Captain had filled both with enough dirt and mud that it'd all solidify and block it all off.  
  
They used a perfected version of the kettle technology. As far as Three understood it, the original kettles warped spacetime to create pocket dimensions. While on a map there were certainly corridors and doorways and roads to other domes, they all existed in the exact same space at once, twisting everything so you instead looped into a different area. The sewer grates utilized the same technology, but instead of creating a pocket dimension, it acted as a connection between two points in space, shortening a six hour trip into a splitsecond hop.  
  
Essentially, the grates leading to and from Mount Nantai were portals. Or at least that's how Three understood the process. Now. Off to to the wretched gate of darkness. Three herded Eight towards the grate and dragged her through. The sooner they got this over with the better, and the better they dealt with whatever the fuck was happening now, the more likely they'd never have to do it ever again ever.  
  
Three hopped through the grate and watched the world flip around to make sense of the whole you fell downwards but you're emerging upwards physics problem. It used to make her sick, but Three stopped being sick a while ago. She didn't have time for being sick anymore. Between being an Agent, her job at the IWTA, her deranged sleep schedule and everybody around her deciding that she was somehow the one to go to with their concerns, being sick was more of a hindrance.  
  
Octo Canyon looked like she remembered. Big, barren and empty. The weird country-style shack was new though... Oh. Wait. Agent Two was supposed to be taking care of things. Duh. Obviously. "Oh, hey." Three glanced at the nearby target range. Another Inkling, wearing a bright yellow jacket and headset. That meant this must be Agent Four then. "Boss told me Agent Three would be stopping by, asked me to wait for you to get here." She turned around and-- Oh. Oh no. "Wait. I know you!"  
  
Three knew her too.  
  
Those irritating green eyes. The stupid short tentacles and yellow colouration. The inane accent you only found in Albacore. God. Agent Two wasn't an idiot. She really wasn't. But seeing this? Yeah, Three would believe that Agent Two had hit her head one too many times as a child. There was no damn way she hadn't been, because if she hadn't been, she wouldn't have hired this moron.  
  
"Snobgirl!" Four declared.  
  
Fangirl.  
  
Three didn't like her. At all. Three liked watching paint dry more than Fangirl. Fangirl's interests were many, but all centered around her inane obsession with Ranked Battle. She thought that it was the only way to Turf, the only reason to even play at all, and mocked people who didn't participate in her precious bullshit.  
  
Ranked was a cesspool. The idea behind Ranked was fine. It was good. Alternatives to just outright playing Turf Wars forever. The only problem was that everyone who went into Ranked was a fucking asshole. You were only good if you had the right abilities, none of which anyone agreed on. You had to look Fresh, except actively trying to look Fresh was totally Unfresh. And if you didn't wear Power Armour or Samurai Armour, you were obviously too stupid to know what was going on. Nevermind that those were limited run pieces of gear that only ran for a week.  
  
And Fangirl here? Loved it. Hell, it was her job. And Three didn't have any hatred for her enjoying her job, because that was like half of tolerating work. No, it was her fucking elitism. Hell, she'd called Three a worthless noob because she tried to take the Rainmaker to the goal. Imagine that, actually trying to do the objective! Wow!  
  
In short Ranked was fucking dumb. The end.  
  
"What the hell are you doing here?" Fangirl had a voice that sounded like a steampipe having drills bore through it, shrill and irritating. "Here to spread your bullshit?" She also thought that Three was a bitch for daring to insult her precious game mode. Idiots like her were bad role models to children as well, demonstrating that it was perfectly alright to be a raging fuckwit if you were cute. It spread a bad message, and Three did not like it.  
  
"I am here," Three said with a great amount of internalized glee. "Because I'm your immediate better, you moron. I'm Agent Three." Her stupid face exploded. Three enjoyed it very much. It was like watching fireworks. Something so beautiful that you just could not look away from it, lest it pass before you can look back. "And I'm here to speak to the Captain."  
  
Fangirl sputtered for a few long seconds. "You got any proof? Besides that busted ass Hero Suit. Hell, that could just be a replica for all I know." Three put her hand on the Hero Shot at her side. Nobody except Agents were allowed to carry a Hero-type weapon - they were explicitly made to be upgraded and enhanced with various techniques. And if that wasn't enough, she pulled out a black and green handle and held it out. "Shit, okay. That's a Hero Shot. And the other thing is... Wait. Is that... No way."  
  
Yup. A broken Roller handle. Her Hero Roller had broken pretty bad, but it'd been her weapon of choice for almost two years. Something that she'd carried with her for so long, it was almost like losing a family member. "Yeah. I swung it against this enemy a few days ago... Thing was bigger and tougher than your ego."  
  
"Damn... And even if I don't like you much, you're a damn good Roller main..." Another part of why Three didn't like Ranked much - they used all this weird as shit terminology. "Must've been something really tough. I know I've seen my share of weird shit here in the Canyon, but nothin' so tough it'd break a Roller. Even the cheapest ones are designed to last for a decade. Hero-types should withstand anything."  
  
"Broke the rest of my gear as well." Her Charger had broke cleanly in half into a pit, her Inkjet gave up the ghost after two days of constant use, the Variable Bomb Launcher had basically melted after some of the creatures the facility had sent after her got too close, the Missile Launcher had to be discarded to distract another two of the creatures, and her Bubble Wand had cracked badly enough that it just couldn't create bubbles anymore. About the only things she had left were, quite thankfully, her Hero Shot, her Splashcloak, and her phone. "Would've lost more if I hadn't gotten real lucky."  
  
Four groaned loudly. "Man... I guess we gotta chat, huh? You tell me what happened on your end, I tell you what happened on ours..." The worst part about her was that if they didn't talk about Ranked, they actually got on decently, since she tried not to step on most of Three's buttons. "Ugh. I just wanna go home, man."  
  
"That's the dream," Three sighed. A moment later, Eight popped through the grate with a loud thud. Three ignored the loud freakout from Fangirl as the Octoling crawled to an edge and threw up everything that she'd just ate. Yeesh. She felt a little sorry for anyone standing directly below where all that was going. Not much. But a little. "You okay?"  
  
"The flipping was really fun," she groaned out. "And I," she threw up again. "Wanted to keep flipping around. But then I started feeling bad." Three wanted to feel bad for her. But thus was the price of hubris. Thus was the price of arrogance. She had tried to conquer the almighty power of the Triple-Fried Galactic Shwaffle, and paid the price. Three felt no sympathy. She felt no sorrow. All she felt was pity.  
  
Four opened her mouth to speak. A very big mistake, if you asked Three. She then closed it. Opened it again. Closed it. Three fully understood this emotion - trying to comprehend a situation that you have no understanding of. "What," she managed after a full minute. "The shit."  
  
"What the shit," Three echoed. She liked to think that both she and Four were silent for a minute to bond over the immense shitshow that was being an Agent and keeping the world from falling into irrevocable chaos. It was a tentative respect. "Oh yeah. Is Captain Cuttlefish here?"  
  
Four nodded silently. "He broke the DJ dude out of the snowglobe and started beating the shit outta him. It was awesome at first, but it started getting real disturbing to hear after like three or four minutes, so I asked if I could leave." She looked at Eight. "Okay, actually hold on. Why is an Octoling here? Aren't they our enemies? Better question, why is she throwing up so hard? Even better question, what's with the leather?" Trust Fangirl to ask about Eight's clothes. The twit.  
  
"In order? She defected, Octarians are enemies and Octolings are leaning either way, she ate an entire Galactic Shwaffle in under six minutes along with chocolate milk, and I think she's a reject from a cyberpunk film." Four looked at the sky for a moment, before looking back down and visibly deciding that she wasn't really paid enough to think about any of this. "It's been a really long week for me, and I'm guessing that since you know about Octavio, it's been a long week for you as well."  
  
"Broke into Cephalon HQ," Oh wow. Seriously? That was. Some kind of impressive. That was simultaneously the Canyon's biggest fortress and biggest research facility. There were more Octarians stationed there than anywhere else in the Canyon. Circumstances had never arranged themselves in a way that Three had ever managed to get close. "Spent most of that just finalizing a route in to get to Octavio, and just last night I beat the shit out of him."  
  
Eight groaned loudly as she pushed herself up like a drunken swan. "DJ Octavio? You beat him?" It probably did sound a little stupid to an Octoling. Like, oh yeah, totally. I totally beat up the President, all on my lonesome. He almost had me, if not for my killer right hook. Yeah, sure. You beat him. "But the Octobot King is invincible. The only reason he'd be hurt is if you deflected the punches he threw! And no way they left that weakness intact after two years ago."  
  
There was a pregant pause as Four shifted uncomfortably. Eight stumbled and then leaned against Three's side, using her as a handhold to stay standing. A look of complete fury and bewilderment crossed her face. It was kinda cute, in that way a Splattershot Jr is cute before it shoots you.  
  
"Are you fucking serious." Three didn't entirely know if it was her or Eight who spoke. She supposed it didn't really matter.  
  
"Kinda, yeah. Got a Rainmaker to use at the end as well. Got too many hours logged with one of those, so it was pretty easy." Four shrugged, like she hadn't just admitted to cheaping it out with a military grade weapon. Three genuinely could not believe that they changed that weakness from two years ago. It was the only reason she'd managed to damage the damn thing at all! If they'd removed the fists and kept everything else, she would have died and the Great Zapfish would've been theirs. "That, and Calamari Inkantation to boost me up. Dunno why or how, but that song... It just brought me back from the brink."  
  
That song was fucking creepy, and the only reason Three tolerated it was that she knew both singers of the new version by name. It did weird things to your brain, and she had reason to believe it was actual magic or something. Four wasn't wrong when she said the song brought her back - that song was like wearing a Splatfest shirt, it doubled your abilities. Broke brainwashing, let people recover their strength, moved objects, forced people to dance with the groove... Three found that song unnerving for a lot of reasons.  
  
"Cal...amari... Inkantation?" Eight asked. Her white eyes glazed over at the mention of the song. "I remember..." She breathed in and smiled. Dammit. Unfair. Three never looked that put together after being horribly sick. "All night at Sector Five. Beats like you wouldn't believe. The sounds were moving and the lights were singing. DJ Octavio was a genius of the musical arts like I'd never heard before."  
  
Four grunted. "Yeah. I heard some of his tunes. Not bad, but it's all too techno for my taste. Come on, I'll take you to the Boss. Hopefully the old men aren't still fighting. It'd be really weird if they were still going..." The three of them started moving up a steel ramp nearby. "Keep going, by the by. I know nothin' about two years back."  
  
"An all night party," Eight continued. She wrapped her arms around Three's arm and leaned in closely. Way, way too closely. "Supposed to raise morale. It was the first time I'd heard music that wasn't piped through the intercom. And then you came in." Oh. Great. So not only was Three robbing a society of a power source, she was also stopping the first music they'd ever heard in person without three layers of static between them and the sound. No, Three didn't feel terrible yet. Why do you ask? "I had never heard of anyone challenging DJ Octavio before. He was not only our King, but somebody we trusted personally. He... He picked me. He picked me, and twenty other people from Sector Two to serve as the front line of defense."  
  
Now that was something Three hadn't heard. She'd thought people were assigned there... Not that Octavio had handpicked out a selection of Octolings to serve under him. "Really? Thought you guys just went where you were told."  
  
"Most of the time," Eight replied. "But DJ Octavio ignored everyone and told us to come with him. He said we were... Special. I don't know how." She paused and considered something. Her hand reached into the Ink Tank on her back and pulled out a small golden item. It looked like a ball impaled on a toothpick. "He gave us these. One each. As a mark of our position. I... I was so happy to get it. That I was noticed." A quiet sniffle emerged from her throat. "And then I heard that song. And... I saw..." Her voice trailed off into nothing.  
  
"Yeah?" Three urged. Eight obviously needed to say what she wanted.  
  
"They sang that song. And... I saw light. Within a dome three miles beneath the surface."  
  
Four frowned. "I mean. Yeah? When I fought him, there were flashing lights all over the place. It was like the world's tackiest nightclub."  
  
"No. I don't mean like a strobe light or a flashlight." She looked and pointed directly up at the sun. "I mean I saw daylight." What. "The sun, clear as anything, sitting in the sky." Fucking what. "It was only for a second, but I felt... Warm." Three was silent as she considered that. Okay. So that fucking song could also make people hallucinate. It got creepier every time she heard anything new about it, she swore.  
  
Four was quiet for a bit before responding. "Yeah. Okay. I'll buy that." Why. Why would you buy that you insufferable fuck. Sure, Three bought it as well, but that was because Three knew that the song was impossibly dangerous. "Sounds like the sorta stupid shit that happens these days." Three was very upset that that made sense.  
  
They walked up to a large kettle set atop a bright pink and purple cushion. Three had never exactly gotten why they did that - the kettles gave steam, the cusions would just get wet and soggy - but whatever, it worked for them. "They went into a boss kettle?"  
  
"Big open area to fight in, I guess." Three thought about that for a long second. And yeah, that made some kind of sense.  
  
"What was the Octoweapon in this one?"  
  
"Octoboss," Eight interrupted.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Octoboss. We only ever remodeled five of the Great Octoweapons before you attacked us. We had to make do. Anything after those five is an Octoboss."  
  
Four sighed. "Fine, whatever." She rolled her shoulders and looked vaguely uneasy. "I don't even know how to describe it. Some kinda... Freaky toaster."  
  
"A machine?"  
  
"No, like an actual toaster. It tried to push me into the abyss with bread. Also, the bread had faces?" It was incredibly slight, but Three felt Eight stiffen slightly. "It was the absolute dumbest bullshit. It had like a glazing arm that shot out ink."  
  
Three was quiet for a moment. "How many bread puns did Agent Two make?"  
  
"She said three, but I counted twenty," Four replied, immediately hurling Agent Two under the bus like any decent person should do. "Are we going, ya fucking purist snob? Or are we gonna wait here until we die?"  
  
"Hold your damn seahorses, you fucking elitist bitch. Yeah, we're going." And Three leaped down into the kettle. Kettles were weird. going into them, it felt like you were squeezing into an actual kettle before the world expanded around you to create the dome. Three didn't like them all that much if she was honest. The moment she touched down in the dome, her eyes caught sight of the Captain slamming a fist into Octavio's jaw. Damn, that was cool.  
  
"Woo! Go Gramps!"  
  
"Kick his butt!"  
  
Agent Three sighed. Agents One and Two were... Great. Really, they were. Even if they did get on her nerves sometimes. But. She wished. Just once. Just... Once. Things would not be any kind of fucking shitshow. Professionalism was not hard. Your worst enemy is down there. Please act like it. Help your grandfather. No? Okay then. Like every other problem in a hundred mile radius, this also became Three's problem. Alright... Time to do this.  
  
Three stepped into the launchpad and rocketed forwards. The moment she switched from Squid to Inkling, she pulled the Hero Shot and started firing. Not precise shots, just enough to force both combatants away from each other. Runners hit the ground, time to start moving. Octavio roared and launched a volley of Calamari Balls like a Bomb Rush, purple ink flicking through the air. "Rematch time, you old bastard."


	3. 8:30 AM - Agent Three Hates Everything

Agent Three remembered DJ Octavio.  
  
Two years ago, she'd fought him and the Octobot King in a dome three miles underground. With the Great Zapfish in his possession, and the greatest of Great Octoweapons at his disposal, he descended from on high to challenge Agent Three to a fight. Three had seen this, and drooled. All she knew, all she could remember, was seeing a challenge so titanic it may as well have been impossible to conquer, a foe so impossible to beat it was insane to continue forwards fighting.  
  
Three had screamed to the heavens, to the gods, to anybody who could hear it. "OH FUCK THE HELL YES!"  
  
It'd been one of the harshest experiences of her entire life, a downright nasty dragout brawl that, according to Agent Two, lasted a full hour. Every moment was engraved into her bones. The barrage of missiles that left her trembling from sheer concussive force, the waves of Octarian troopers that forced her attention to every possible angle in case of an attack from behind, the beat of the electronica carving itself into her ears, the roar of the Killer Wail as it charged and fired so often it should've melted, the constant threat of falling down down down into the abyss below... She could've died a million times that day...  
  
And it was so fucking fun. By the time she'd pushed Octavio back enough for Agents One and Two to arrive, she'd practically fallen in love with this fight. The lights flaring in her eyes, the beat in her ears, the smell of ink in the air, the taste of victory, the feeling of adrenaline, it was something she would treasure for years to come. Amidst this perfect day, this perfect fight, she found respect for Octavio and his craft. He had taken a mundane machine, a bland song, and fused the two into something almost magical.  
  
It'd been beautiful, the first time Three had felt excited over anything for the first time in almost four years. Agent One had told her after the fact that it was the first time she had seen Three smile in the entirety of their quest for the Great Zapfish. And... Yeah. It was. Everything had been so... Boring. Empty. A lot like her shitty apartment. But fighting Octavio had been like... Like her first Turf War.  
  
And then it'd been over.  
  
And Octavio was in a snowglobe.  
  
And the Great Zapfish was back.  
  
And Three went back to her empty, grey, depressing life.  
  
She guessed it said something about her that the first time she'd felt excited since she learned how to shift from Squid to Inkling was fighting an actual war machine. Either something about her priorities or about her mild addiction to flirting with death.  
  
Anyways.  
  
Agent Three remembered fighting DJ Octavio.  
  
More precisely, she remembered fighting the Octobot King.  
  
Because fighting him without it was pathetic.  
  
The moment Octavio saw Three land, and the moment she spoke, his eyes widened so fast it was like watching a Burst Bomb go off. Like, oh shit. And Three was kinda proud of causing that terror because it meant she was still a terrifying lady with the potential to scare anybody who annoyed her to the point of tears.  
  
Getting the Captain out of there had been so easy it was almost insulting. Jet down, distract Octavio, grab the Captain, Superjump back up and toss him to Agents One and Two. There. Murder prevented, she's a regular police officer. Actually no, that'd be awful. Police had all these rules that would make fighting people way harder, and Three had a feeling that if she ever joined the actual police she'd go completely and totally mad within a week and explode in a seething ball of temper and rage.  
  
Three stepped forward and Octavio started throwing Bombs. Calamari Balls, Splat Bombs, Burst Bombs, way, WAY too many Suction Bombs, a load of Seekers and even a couple dozen Curling Bombs. Three hated Curling Bombs, as an aside. Too gimmicky for her taste. Like, oh. Yeah. Whatever. You go ahead and try to be tricky or whatever, makes no difference to Three. She'll just be here, swimming past your stupid dumb bullshit to shove a Shooter in your face.  
  
Idiots.  
  
It was super easy to dodge, by the by. People get this impression that Bombs were hard to get around due to the blast radius. And yes. That was true. So don't run near them, just take a step back, wait for them to explode, and run past the next volley.  It's almost like having patience is a virtue! Actually, that was true. Patience was a virtue, because Agent Four had none of it, and Three would throw herself into an abyss before she thought anything about Four was virtuous.  
  
So Octavio did his best Tentakook impression, screaming, running, hurling as many bombs as it was possible for an Octoling his age to create and hurl in Three's direction. Meanwhile, Three did her best 'It Came From Salmonid Bay' impression by slowly waltzing towards Octavio while smiling innocently. Every now and then at random intervals, she broke into a sprint and nailed three shots on the bastard before backing off out of the range of any Bombs.  
  
The best thing? Octavio couldn't even get away! Three could terrify him as long as she pleased. Yeah, the arena was inside a dome, but it was so high up that even though Octarians were boneless, the force of hitting the ground from this height with the speed of a Superjump would hit Octavio with enough energy that he'd pop like a balloon. And trust her, Three had looked: There was no technology in the world, not even by Octarian standards, good enough to put him back together again after something like that.  
  
And Octavio knew that.  
  
"God, Snobgirl, just kick his ass already!" Also, she was drawing this out because it was pissing off Fangirl and that meant Three would do it all day. Why? Because fuck Ranked Battle. That's why.  
  
"Shut up, Fangirl! I need to savour this!" Also, the moment they got back up to the surface, everybody would be on her case with the whole don't be a terrifying monster thing. And if anybody got that, it was Three. She'd gotten banned from Turf War for a month once for terrifying her opponents so badly they didn't want to leave the Spawnpoint. Not that she really entirely got it, but it was one of those things that society in general frowned upon for some reason. "I'm having fun! I know it's a foreign concept to you, but I'm in my happy place right now!"  
  
"Ignore Agent Four!" Agent One yelled, like a cool person who Three liked for various reasons. "I wanna see you deepfry him! Turn him into takoyaki!"  
  
"Callie, that's gross." Agent Two replied as she casually broke fucking cover like an asshole. Codenames existed for a reason. And yet, Agent Two didn't seem to fucking care. "If he's food, that means somebody is going to eat him."  
  
"Well, what do you suggest?"  
  
"Modern art," Two said calmly. "It'd have the same end result of turning Octavio into a smear."  
  
"Hah!"  
  
Three decided to butt into the conversation. "Modern art is an oxymoron!" Because anything that involved modern artists was, by definition, garbage.  
  
"Retrophile!" One yelled. "What about us?"  
  
"Proud of it," Three replied back as she sidestepped a Curling Bomb. "And I barely tolerate the Squid Sisters because you're my friends." She very pointedly ignored the gasp of surprise and excitement that probably came from Eight. "Oh yeah. By the way, I brought your biggest fan along with me. Have fun with that." She did not smile as the voices of both Agents were overrun by an extremely fast ramble of Octarian words. Three was... Kind of fluent? And she barely caught a single word along the way.  
  
She caught 'Fan' and 'Inkantation' and that was about it.  
  
Octavio seemed caught off guard. Which... Um? Three would be the first to say that she had no idea of what Octarian society was up to, but... Did he actually have no idea that Octolings were defecting from his side? But he had been free earlier, right? So he had to have known what the hell was going on at that point. "What the hell is 85-888 doing up there?" ... He sounded furious. Also, good to know that Eight had some sort of designation to look her up with.  
  
"Fangirling over the Squid Sisters, probably."  
  
Something snapped like a twig in Octavio's eyes. "What," Octavio snarled quietly. "Did you just say to me? Brat?" Okay. There was... Something there that Three was not a fan of. At all. It was a quiet, seething fury that was barely an inch from exploding. "I would choose my words real careful, and real respectful."  
  
"... The Inkantation. Fuck if I know how it works. But she heard it. Broke the crazy brainwashing that you put over all your little troops."  
  
When somebody transformed from Squid to Inkling, it followed the same process. This process usually took just under one full second, and generally involved flooding the space between two layers of skin with freshly generated ink from the ink sac. When it occured however, it was all fast enough and self-contained that you gained no additional momentum or speed or power from the transformation. In addition, the amount of ink moving so fast basically prevented any form of Superjump from occuring at the same time. The same rules generally applied to Octolings as well.  
  
In essence, while transforming, you could not Superjump or gain any form of momentum that exceeded the other forms current speed.  
  
Octavio decided to tell the laws of physics to fuck off, and Superjumped into the air the moment that his transformation began. Three was not stupid, so she proceeded to fucking run the moment that Octavio started to move. A quiet swear escaped her throat as an eight foot tall Octoling rose eighty feet into the air. "GRAAAAAAAAAGH!" A dark purple glow surrounded him, flames practically igniting the air around Octavio.  
  
Three knew this. Like, how the fuck could she not know what this was? "Fucking hell, today is just not gonna go my way, is it?" she muttered. "Okay then... Let's dance, DJ." She proceeded to shoot behind herself and start swimming. FAST.  
  
Octavio - actual Octoling-form Octavio instead of Octopus form - kicked off the ceiling and shot downwards like an Inkstrike. Despite being at the center of the arena, the blast radius extended far outwards enough to paint all but a small ring a deep dark purple. Three just barely cleared it, and even then, only survived by flashing her ink colour purple at the last second to prevent most of the backlash from hitting her system at large.   
  
Practically the opposite of the Captain, Octavio stood eight feet tall with more muscle than Three had seen on people that actually worked out instead of doing DJ work. He wore dark purple sweatpants with an old tattered grey haori over his shoulders, a pair of headphones around his neck, and two dark almost black rings around his eyes. Two sticks of wasabi pinned his tentacles together in a bun,   
  
"Inklings... Always, you damned Inklings! You take our Zapfish, you take our freedom, and now, AND NOW," Octavio snarled and ripped the kabuto off his head and held it by the rope cord. "YOU TAKE MY FUCKING CHILDREN?!" He swung.  
  
And the wave of ink from that Slosher was wide enough that Three had to activate her own Splashdown just to leap high enough to dodge it."Pretty arrogant to call anyone your kid after you brainwashed them!" Three charged forwards, shifting from purple to as bright a green she could manage. Quick as she could manage, she twisted the nozzle on the Hero Shot and opened fire.  
  
"It was for their own good!" Octavio snarled, swinging again. The Slosher spread ink wide, but Three was close enough to slide under the wave this time. She sprung up and circled Octavio quick as she could manage. The monster man spun and-- ARGH. His leg landed right in her stomach like a bullet. "If I hadn't done it, then they'd have been subjected to that goddamn mess in Kamabo! And I wasn't gonna let my own people die for no good reason!"  
  
Three went flying, skipped across the ground three times, and then skidded to a stop. Wow! Three did not know it was possible to be in this much pain! It stung. It stung really, really bad. And she was not up to dealing with this right now. Tomorrow, after she'd rested, maybe. The day after, when she'd gotten time to recover from being used as a punching bag for Eight, definitely. Right now? After a solid week of movement, fighting and investigation, charging through solid glass to save the Captain, fighting that crazy telephone and getting her ass kicked, being possessed, fighting Eight and getting her ass kicked, and then getting hit like that?  
  
No. No, this? This was a fight she could not manage. It hurt to admit, and it sucked to even think.  
  
But Octavio was going to kill her.  
  
"HEY DJ!" And that was when Agent One descended from the sky like an angel, Hero Roller in midswing. "GETTA LOAD OF THIS!" Octavio growled as the solid hit from the Roller forced him straight backwards, ink kicked up as he skidded away.  
  
"Agent One," Three coughed. "Sure took your sweet time."  
  
"Nice to see you too, Three." Agent One held out her hand and grinned as her ink shifted to green. "Besides, I couldn't just let you take all the credit for fighting him. I want my chunk of flesh."  
  
"Sweet as always, Agent One." Three grabbed her hand and let Callie haul Three to her feet. "Don't let him hit you, hurts like a bitch. I'm mostly just gonna... Not engage, I think. Another hit like that is definitely gonna splat me."  
  
Agent One made an upset noise.  
  
Agent Three hated upset noises.  
  
Eurgh. Everything felt woozy and painful. Three dunked a hand into the ink and activated the hidden IAL in the Hero Shot. She had enough ink for one thing... Make it count, Three.  
  
Callie grabbed the Roller's handle with both hands and let the tip of the weapon droop downwards, so as to protect Three. Great. She was a liability now. Just had to be framed for murder and her bucket list was all crossed off! Whee! "Relax! We've got this."  
  
... We?  
  
"Oi, Octavio." A Charger fired, slamming into Octavio's side. "Did you really think I was gonna let you get away with what you did?" Oh yeah. Three still didn't find out why the hell the Captain went fucking crazy and tried to commit a crime. Agent Two landed behind Octavio looking for all the world like this was a casual gathering of friends rather than fighting a King. "I was mad before... But you've officially got my attention. Congratulations." Flames gathered atop Marie's head like an emerald crown. Ink formed and solidified behind her back, forming into a Sting Ray.  
  
A solid beam of bright green ink blasted out and hit Octavio dead center. "GRAAGH! You little popstar punk!" The Octoling turned on his heel and charged, straight through the Sting Ray's beam. Ink was visibly gathering on his body, he was vulnerable to Ink Absorbency thank god, but it was nowhere NEAR fast enough. "You wanna piss me off, I'll force a pair of shades on you like I did that damn sister of yours!" Why were sunglasses a threat?!  
  
What the fuck was going on?!  
  
Marie screamed and pulled the trigger all the way. The beam grew more intense, forcing Octavio to leap to the side before ink fully covered him. "Go ahead and try it, you poor excuse for a DJ. You take my sister away from me again and I'll burn down every damn dome I can find in this fucking mountain, you hear me?" After a full thirty seconds, the beam and the Sting Ray faded away to mere ink droplets. "Fuck this. I'm calling in the big guns. Agent Four? Please hit Octavio in his fat fucking face."  
  
Agent Four blasted into the air and spun, yellow ink ribboning around her as it shifted to green to properly combat Octavio. The Octobrush in her hands spun wildly. For once - just this once - Three chose to be impressed by her skill. The Octobrush landed home, slamming dead into Octavio's back hard enough that the Sardinium handle cracked. "Yo, fuckface. I kicked your ass not three hours ago! What the hell makes you think I'm afraid of your ass?!" The Octobrush spun and impacted upon Octavio's back once, twice, four times, eight times, twenty times, strikes blending into each other faster than Three could see.  
  
Octavio swung around and barely missed Four with a right hook. "You little brats!" He spun on his heel and swung the Slosher with his other hand, letting a wave of ink fly. Four fell downwards into the splits and ducked right under the wave. Marie fired a small burst of ink, enough to let her speed forwards and hop out of the ink to bounce onto Four's back. She leapt into the air and fired a full charge burst of low-tide ink into Octavio's stupid fucking face.  
  
Callie charged in immediately afterwards, eyes gleaming. "Nice try, jackass!" The DJ bent sideways as the Hero Roller slammed into his side. Callie withdrew the Roller, flicked the head horizontal, and then swung it forwards like a pickaxe. Octavio spun with the motion, Slosher in midswing. The Roller snagged onto Octavio's shoulder, impacting a significant amount of damage and dragging Callie out of the way of the Slosher-helmet. Four leapt back in, peppering Octavio with repeated strikes, while Marie circled like a shark as she slammed as many high power shots into his torso as possible. Callie pulled herself in, pushed off Octavio's shoulder and spun, letting gravity throw the Roller right onto his shitty mess of tentacles. It slammed down right onto his head like a guillotine, sending his entire body right into the ground. "I am never going back there, you hear me? I am DONE, with all of your BULLSHIT!"  
  
Octavio lashed out, tripping Marie with his leg. "Got you." He scrambled up and lifted the helmet like a stone and roared. It plummeted down and stopped just shy of Marie's head as an Octobrush blocked it midfall, green ink dripping off the handle. "What?!"  
  
Four grinned as the Slosher pushed down. Marie rolled away and opened fire in combination with Callie. But Four couldn't move... If she moved left, Octavio could land a punch, if she moved right, Octavio had time to hit her with a wave... Damn it! Three didn't like her, but Four didn't deserve to die like this! "You got more problems in that head of yours than I thought, huh? Kidnappin' and brainwashin' ain't fun enough? Gotta drop down to murder? Can't say I'm shocked!" Wait. Kidnapping and brainwashing?  
  
A piece clicked and fell into place.  
  
"Why," Three grunted as she pushed herself up. "Are you talking about Hypnoshades?"  
  
"How do you know about them, brat!" Octavio yelled. "Those were a new model!"  
  
"I've been skulking around lately," Three responded.  
  
"Like an edgelord?" Four asked as Octavio increased the pressure.  
  
"Fuck you." Where was she? Oh yeah. "Yeah, they were being newly made. No way I'd have found out what they were by looking. But the computer files? All there for me to take. More specifically... I saw two blueprints for the Hypnoshades. One new, one old." Three rolled her shoulders and forced herself to stand tall. Hero Shot at the ready, okay... Let's try all this again. Hope we don't die.  
  
"Wait," Marie asked. "Two sets of Hypnoshades?"  
  
"Mm," Three replied. "One was from two years ago. It relied on shapes and lights rapidly shifting in front of the wearer's eyes in order to loosen their minds into a pliable shape. From there, any form of Octarian music could implant orders. The longer the user wore them, the more they wanted to go back. Almost like a drug." Tears sprung up in Callie's eyes. "Eventually, the shades would go unneeded as the user became fully indoctrinated. Problem is... I can't see why Octarians would use those instead of the other set. They're almost primitive in comparison."  
  
"Shut up," Octavio snarled. "Shut up right now." Octavio looked really mad. Furious enough that every Agent within range was pelting him with attacks and he wasn't even flinching. That was actually a little freaky, usually Three saw some sort of flinch as a result of something being inked. But here? Nothing.  
  
"I wondered that for a while," Three said as she didn't shut up. "Except in the last week... I found out why. You were giving them to Kamabo Corp. Weren't you?" Another thread of Octavio's sanity snapped, and he rushed forwards. Good. Get close, asshole. Three has a surprise waiting just for you here... Five. Four. Three. Two. One.  
  
Octavio noticed the click right as he landed on the Ink Mine Three had been cooking up since Callie had pulled her ass out of the fire a few minutes ago. Rather, he noticed the click of all fifty Ink Mines that Three had been cooking up. She knew asking the Captain how to make those would come in handy eventually. "What?!" Ooh, Three loved it when her plans came together. A veritable wave of ink rose out of the ground, engulfing Octavio and Three completely. But where the wave of green ink hurt Octavio? It soothed all of Three's injuries. It'd tide her over until the battle was over, at the very least.  
  
Now that her arm wasn't likely to go limp from pain, Three was free to sprint around Octavio and open fire as she retreated back. "Sup."  
  
Four grunted as the wave died down. "I kinda get how the Boss said you were good now... Letting yourself get hit by your own mines as a way to recover is insane. I love it." Heh. That's why Three was the best. "Still, that won't slow him down forever."  
  
"No, it won't," Marie agreed. "But it's bought us some time. Four, Callie? Care to show off?" Both heads burst into flame, paired with furious smiles. Marie smiled murderously as she hefted her Charger and pointed it at the still exploding tower of ink. "The moment he gets out of there, we move to disable him. Callie, on the left. Four, the right. Three, you're on center. I'll stay back, take some pot shots. Once he hits visible ink absorbency, I want Four and Three to bombard him with their Specials. Callie, if he starts throwing, I want Ink Armour. If I get the chance, I'll activate another Sting Ray and see if we can't knock him out. Got it?"  
  
Sounded good. Everybody nodded and took positions. Callie let her Roller slam onto the ground and took a second to refuel. Four spun the Octobrush around her shoulders before letting the tip rest on the ground. Three lifted her Hero Shot and adjusted the nozzle for maximum burst fire. Marie exhaled and waited as the Hero Charger powered up.  
  
The explosion of ink faded down. Octavio looked like hell. Probably meant this was all gonna end real soon. One way or the other. "Kamabo wanted them, and I ain't giving anythin' more to Kamabo than I have to, got it?!" That... That was interesting for a number of reasons. The primary reason being Octavio was the leader of Octarian society and he was being forced to deal with that facility... Hm. Food for thought. The man in question leapt forwards, eyes wild and frenzied.  
  
"Open fire!" Marie yelled. Callie swung the Roller up and over, while Four brought the Brush low and swung upwards. Both hit Octavio dead center, stopping his momentum dead and sending him right into the ground. The moment he was on the ground, Three and Marie opened fire, buying time for both Callie and Four to refill the ink canisters on their weapons. "Keep it steady!" Yeah yeah, she knew.  
  
Octavio started to get up, even while Three and Marie were laying into him. "Switch!" Three yelled. The moment Octavio got any sort of balance back, Callie jumped out of the ink and brought her Roller right down. Three retreated into the ink, same as Marie. The moment they did that, Four bounced into the air and laughed maniacally as she swung the Octobrush into Octavio's side. The man swung his fist back, only for Four to roll around him and strike his other side. The helmet turned Slosher switched from the right hand to the left, spinning around to launch a wave of ink outwards.  
  
"INK ARMOUR!" Callie shouted. A faint greenish tint over Three's vision as the Squidbeak Splatoon charged in. It provided just enough power for them to force their way through the wave and attack Octavio directly. "Be fast, twenty seconds and closing!" Ink Armour was only good for this one situation. It sucked in all other situations. The sound of a hundred bullets echoed in the air like a symphony. Any time he tried to swing the Slosher, Callie slammed the Roller down on his arm, while Four knocked him off balance by slamming the Octobrush into his sides.  
  
Marie sprinted close, ducked into the ink for a moment, before leaping out and pulling the trigger as fast as she could. Three joined in and basically pushed the nozzle of the Hero Shot up against Octavio's neck, because fuck any kind of subtlety or restraint at this point. If Octavio could just keel over and DIE already, that'd be great. But no! People are determined to waste Three's precious precious lifespan with their tedious bullshit.  
  
The DJ groaned... And then vanished. Shit. Where did he-- Oh. Wait. Octoling. "The ink!" Three yelled loudly. "He's in the ink!" There was a long moment, one that lasted for like. About the same length of time it takes for dawning horror to kick in? Everybody had that moment simultaneously. There were no shortages of places for him to go, either. The guy was both active and using a Slosher, so the arena was like half purple ink, so he could be almost anywhere.  
  
Octavio was an asshole. So he jumped out of the ink barely an inch away from Agent Four and launched a wave of ink. She didn't even get a word out as every drop hit her like a truck and broke the Ink Armour, instead opting for a pained scream. Marie let out a furious yell as she spun and opened fire. "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER!" Three was getting really good at identifying panic and terror on people's faces recently. She wasn't super sure that she liked the ability. Marie charged forwards, only for Octavio to launch another wave of ink. Marie's Ink Armour broke like weakened glass as she fell back from the pain.  
  
"Damn it," Three muttered. "This is gonna go straight to hell, isn't it?" Okay. New plan. And it would be more effective than anything else, because it was just Three using Splashdown repeatedly until the current problem went away. Honestly, she had no idea why any other plan worked when Splashdowns solved everything.  
  
Callie sprinted in, because things weren't bad enough. She swung the Hero Roller, only for Octavio to swung the Slosher in return. Three rushed forwards and kicked off the ground into the air. The Roller hit Octavio dead in the chest, while the Slosher was only a mere inch away from Callie. Three screamed and activated Splashdown right on top of the fucking bucket, impacting it just enough to knock it down and miss Callie's body entirely. It had the unfortunate side effect of dissolving the Ink Armour and making Three topple onto Callie and collapse in a pile, but whatever. Living was cool.  
  
Octavio promptly decided that hey. You know what? Fuck these people. Because he started glowing again. Three swore loudly. Callie joined in, because swearing was fun and also cathartic in the face of certain doom. Marie swore as well, but that was more her being pissed off than out of fear. And Four... Four groaned in pain, but it was definitely the sort of groan that would be equivalent to a swear.  
  
Octavio moved to jump into the air. He totally was gonna Splashdown again, huh?  
  
Marie dragged Four over to Callie and Three, propping the Agent on her shoulder. "We're all going to die, aren't we?"  
  
"Yeah," Callie groaned. Three rolled off her and glared. "Three, he won't explode if you glare at him. Trust me, I tried."  
  
"I can try."  
  
"Well," Four coughed. "If we're gonna die." And then she kissed Marie. Because obviously death was not enough of a punishment for Three, she had to watch Four get any sort of enjoyment out of life beforehand.  
  
"Get a room," Callie sighed. "It was nice while it lasted, guys."  
  
"Y'know," Three said. "Mathematically, if we shift purple, we'll survive."  
  
"Mathematically, you can shut the fuck up," Four replied.  
  
"Heh. Knew I hired you for a reason," Marie chuckled. "Not a bad idea, though."  
  
Three really hoped she was right, and that they'd survive long enough to die in any other way that wasn't a Splashdown. Because. Y'know. Irony.  
  
Octavio jumped.  
  
And so did Agent Eight.  
  
"I resign!" Eight spun mid-Superjump and slammed her boots right into Octavio's chest, firing her Octoshot with precision accuracy. And in that moment, Three saw it - visible ink. Shit, they were actual doing damage. And then she Superjumped again, kicking off to alter the trajectory of Octavio's Splashdown. Octavio, instead of landing square on the New Squidbeak Splatoon, slammed down on the other side of the arena. Eight fired a dozen shots and created a large pool of bright green ink. "Soak for a bit. I'll keep him busy."  
  
... Okay. Three was cool with that. Three was super fine with everything that just happened. Three crawled into the ink pool and submerged. A moment later, she felt everyone else do the same.  
  
"Okay. So. Again. What the shit," Four asked.  
  
"Is that an Octoling?!" Marie yelled. "What the hell?!"  
  
"Blame your grandfather," Three replied. "I lost him for a week and this happened."  
  
"You said she's our biggest fan?" Callie asked dubiously.  
  
"Calamari Inkantation is the worst kind of bullshit," Three growled. "One day, I shall die. My corpse shall fester in a tomb of shadow. And then, I shall hear that song. From that day forth, I shall arise from my tomb and dedicate the remnants of my shambling corpse and soul to destroying all traces of it from this world."  
  
"Edgelord," Callie replied instantly.  
  
"Edgelord who is armed," Three shot back.  
  
"Edgelord," Callie said firmly.  
  
"Let's go," Marie grumbled. "We can't let her fight Octavio on her own, regardless of if she's an Octoling or not. She did save our lives."  
  
"She has a tendency to do that," Three muttered darkly. She still wasn't over the whole having her life saved from possession thing. And apparently she had saved the world. So this made three seperate life savings that Eight had pulled off. Three was never gonna catch up to that, damn it.  
  
"Are you actually mad she saved your life?" Four asked incredulously.  
  
"I don't have to answer that," Three replied.  
  
Callie nodded exhaustedly. "Three used to give us these little rage noises whenever we pointed something out that could get her hurt. So we eventually got a megaphone and started pointing stuff out through that."  
  
"I don't know why I tolerate either of you," Three grumbled.  
  
"Because you're stuck with us," Marie replied. "Anyway, time for a new plan. Three, help your friend distract Octavio for us. Four, use your Inkjet to help out. Callie, you and I will build up our Specials. If we do this right, he'll have nowhere to run when I unleash the Sting Ray. Good?"  
  
"We live to see the sun," Three said. "So yes."  
  
"Good enough for me," Marie said with a smirk. "Break!"  
  
The four of them rushed out of the ink, weapons drawn. Four yelled and activated the Inkjet, flying up into the air and away from Three. Callie ran to the left, Marie to the right. Which left Three all on her own to engage Octavio alongside Agent Eight. Three snapped off a few shots, creating a nice lane for her to slide in and get into the fray.  
  
Eight gave a minor nod as Three joined in. "Good to have you." And that was all she said before she got back to fighting. Three might honestly like this girl, she really might. And, to her surprise, the fight against Octavio... Became simple. Four pelted Octavio from above with Inkjet shots, which distracted away from it somewhat, but... Eight was just... Man. Times like this, Three wondered how the hell she'd ever beaten Octavio if this had been his front line.  
  
Every time Octavio made to use that damn Slosher of his, one of them would grab his attention while the other would circle behind and kick to knock it off balance. The moment Four's Inkjet exploded, she touched down and began painting the area around them. Good - the less area he had to move in, the better. Octavio moved to kick at Eight, a solid roundhouse that had taken Three off her feet earlier. Three did not stare, at all, shut up, when Eight simply bent at the waist and let the attack fly over her before straightening back out to keep firing.  
  
Ink kept forming on Octavio's body. Three was gonna guess they were past the halfway point. "Give me some room!" Eight took the hint as Three bounced into the air and activated Splashdown. She shot straight down and knocked Octavio back. She jumped and Splashdowned again, forcing him to hold the Slosher in front of himself as a makeshift shield. Third time, she Splashdowned and knocked the DJ to his knees. "I'm out of Splashdowns!"  
  
"Secure him!" Marie yelled. Callie activated Ink Armour, and the familiar tint of green overtook her vision again. Both Callie and Four moved in and slammed their respective weapons into his chest and back. Eight grabbed his arms and twisted, wrenching the Slosher out of his hands. Three slammed the nozzle of the Hero Shot into his forehead. "We win!"  
  
The distinctive whirr of the Sting Ray echoed through the air as the beam of green ink struck dead center of Octavio's chest. He let out a wordless, furious cry as the beam grew bigger... And then went limp as he finally, finally passed out from pain and collapsed to the ground, and the fight was finally over.  
  
"THANK FUCKING GOD," Three yelled.  
  
"Preach," Four groaned.  
  
"I never want to do that again," Marie muttered.  
  
"Is this what it's like to be you, Three?" Callie asked. "Tired and grumpy?"  
  
"That's the title of my biography," Three replied.  
  
"I don't know what you're all so angry about," Eight said like an asshole who only joined in the fight in the last three minutes. "That was easy. Sure, King Octavio is skilled, but a Slosher can only do so much."  
  
"New girl, I will eat your soul," Four snarled.  
  
"But I need my soul!"  
  
"Tough!"  
  
"Souls are actually gross," Callie replied. "You want her brains."  
  
"I'm not a zombie," Four retorted.  
  
"You have the braindead look down," Eight said as she cemented herself as a new friend.  
  
Marie fell onto her back. "Biggest fan, huh?"  
  
Three nodded. "Yes. Can I go home now?"  
  
"Of course not," Marie replied, because Marie was Agent Two and Agent Two was the worst person that Three had ever met, "We need to debrief."  
  
"Can't we do that tomorrow?"  
  
"Consider it revenge for somehow bringing an Octoling home."  
  
Agent Three remembered DJ Octavio.  
  
More specifically, Agent Three remembered that if he didn't exist, she wouldn't have met Agent Two and her life would have been infinitely better.  
  
A cruel, cruel man, that DJ.


	4. 9:30 AM - Agent Three Gets More Questions Than Answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was only supposed to be 4000 words
> 
> An interesting sidenote - despite every enemy being Sanitized, I don't think anyone ever actually says the word "Sanitized" in all of Octo Expansion.

Three had no idea what the hell was going on.  
  
But that was about to change. It was ALL about to change.  
  
Explanations. Context. Answers. The sweetest currency Three could imagine. Coins? Bug off. Meal tickets? Go away. Actual sweets that were shaped like her enemies so she could bite the heads off? No chance. Actually no, she'd give that one a go because that sounded cool. But it would be a close call, because she could picture no more perfect world than one where she got some damn answers for once in her life that made any semblance of sense.  
  
Not even the computer files she'd dug up had given her answers. Well. She said that. It felt more like she had the answers but no questions. Which was somehow more irritating. It was only in the last week - getting to be a trend, that phrase - that Three had made any form of progress that wasn't a brick wall painted over to look like a welcoming gateway. Seriously, the stuff she had found so far was seemingly handcrafted to make Three want to murder everything in a mile radius.  
  
The Hypnoshades, for instance. Two sets, one old and one new. Octarians were using the old set, only on Octolings whose ID number ranged between 800 and 1000, a good number of whom joined Octavio's ranks in the last four years. Why that number range? Hell if Three could tell. Why solely Octavio's team and not the entirety of Octo society? Hell if Three could tell. Why not use the new shades? _Hell if Three could tell_.  
  
That wasn't the only creepy shit she'd found down there. Schematics for the Great Octoweapons, including the three that they hadn't managed to remodel. Plans for genetically altering Octarians to include ability chunks in their DNA. Modified ink tanks that used kettle tech to contain up to thirty gallons rather than just one gallon. Blueprints for new weapons, including a modular version of a standard Octoshot, some kind of Shooter/Charger hybrid and, most chillingly, several design docs for an improved version of the Squeezer.  
  
Yeah. The _Squeezer_ was ominous. A sentence you'd never hear anywhere else. The gun was bad - Three would know, she tested the damn thing - and if the Octarians wanted it, they were free to have it. But it had only been on store shelves a day before Three found the design docs in question. During a trip to the surface, she'd enquired with her coworker at the IWTA, Zoey, who insisted that the prototype and all information on it were still in the building. Which meant either it was a massive coincidence or there was an Octarian spy on the surface that nobody knew about.  
  
Every single thing she'd seen in that computer were freaky as hell. And then she'd fallen into Kamabo, and found out that Octarians were generally _sane_ compared to the hellscape down there.  
  
Assembly lines that, as far as she could tell, created items solely to destroy them. Entire rooms lined wall to wall with blenders filled with creepy green ink. Stained operating rooms with Octolings in medical garb staring ahead at the walls in dead silence. The standard Octo floatation tech being used to ferry hundreds of screaming, terrified, normal Octarians into a solid wall of green ink... At which point the Octarians came out the other side green and blue and the screaming promptly _stopped_. And that wasn't even counting the gauntlet of monsters she'd crawled through just to get towards the testing facility at all.  
  
Octavio was very right when he said Kamabo was a mess. The Captain had said on the walk back up from the kettle that he'd called in some favours to try and keep people from getting in, and if Three ever had her way, nobody would ever go back down there. Ever.  
  
Speaking of not being in an underground hellscape, they were back on the surface. Octavio was back in his snowglobe, and the Squidbeak Splatoon was sitting in what Agent Two had called Octo Canyon HQ, and what Agent Four had called Marie's Hermit Hut. It wasn't a bad place. Looked better than her own apartment, at least. Not that it was a hard accomplishment.  
  
Agent Two sat down at a table in the center of the room and motioned for everyone to sit down. Agent One sat down directly to her left, as close as possible to her cousin. Agent Four, on the other hand, flounced onto the ground on the right and practically draped herself over Agent Two. All three of them kept their weapons close in some display of strength. Three had no idea what the fuck they thought they were doing, but it was probably something that was rooted in the past few weeks.  
  
The Captain took a seat on the side of the table. Possibly trying to frame himself as the wise elder whom everybody trusts. Which. Wasn't untrue. He'd taught Three a lot about being an Agent and general fighting know-how. The Captain was half the reason Three was so skilled, and almost entirely the reason that Three hadn't burned out on life two years ago. He was a good dude.  
  
That said, he was still a wiki-page modifying weirdo, and Three did not trust him to be any kind of wise outside of a fight.  
  
Meanwhile, Three and Eight took seats opposite Agents One, Two and Four. Eight kneeled down and shuffled nervously. Three, in defiance of all this casual and planned sitting down, simply stood where she wanted to be seated, hopped into the air and crossed her legs before she hit the ground.  
  
Four looked flabbergasted. Like she had never understood the concept of rebellion before. "What the shit?! What was that?! I don't, what?! What is the purpose!"  
  
"Don't," Two warned. "Don't jump down that pit. You won't find a way back."  
  
"Should I do that too?" Eight asked curiously. She was promptly shouted down. See, this is why Three had very few friends, and the ones she did have were only tolerated instead of enjoyed. Because whenever she tried to be silly or have fun, she got shot down from every angle.  
  
Agent Two cleared her throat. "Okay! Let's get down to business."  
  
Four promptly interrupted at the top of her lungs. "TO DEFEAT! THE SALMONIDS!"  
  
Agent One joined in passionately. "DID THEY SEND ME CHILDREN? WHEN I ASKED! FOR SQUIDS!"  
  
" **YOU'RE THE SADDEST BUNCH I EVER MET! BUT YOU CAN BET! BEFORE WE'RE THROUGH! MISTER, I'LL! MAKE AN INKLING! OUT OF YOU!** "  
  
Eight gave Three an incredibly disturbed look. "Am I missing something?"  
  
"You are missing exactly nothing, trust me." Three pulled the Hero Shot and leaned across the table to press the nozzle directly to Four's head. The singing promptly stopped. See, lots of people said violence was never the answer. And they were right. It was the _threat_ of violence that was the answer. Three very much loved that she had instilled enough fear into people that they stopped singing like idiots if she pointed a weapon at them. Most Inklings wouldn't blink twice at a Shooter being pointed at them. But Three was a special case. She enjoyed it dearly. "Can we please get this over with? I am tired. I want to go home."  
  
Three did not whine. Three never whined.  
  
Agent Two nodded. "Yes. I'm happy you two are getting along, but we do need to get this over with." She sighed and looked at Eight directly in the eye. To her credit, Eight stared back. It was an intense staredown. On the one hand, Agent Two had nerves made of other nerves that were made of steel, and had fought the Octarians for at least three years longer than Three had. On the other, Eight had survived in Kamabo. Which was all that really needed to be said about her intensity, really. "So before we start. I will ask you this, Miss...?"  
  
"Eight."  
  
"Miss Eight. Why do you want to live on the surface?" ... Okay, starting strong.  
  
Eight stared. Her white eyes flickered for a moment. "... I spent my entire life underground. And then I heard that song. That heavenly melody... Calamari Inkantation. You sang, and I saw sunlight. For the first time in my life, I saw a blue sky. Real, and shining, and warm. I saw that our way of life didn't have to be that way, that, that there wouldn't be days without warmth or days without light. I would've made my way out... But somebody beat me to it." ... That Octoling Three saw back on the helicopter. Mara or whatever. She would've done it. "Security was bulked up, and I spent the next two years afraid that somebody was going to arrest me for treason. Or kill me. Or worse. I spent every free moment of those two years trying to find another way out that could help me get out of there. It took so, so long, and I almost made it to the surface... When Agent Three stepped in."  
  
"... Sorry." There really wasn't much to say to that, was there? I'm sorry my insane headlong charge into certain death fucked over your entire life? I'm sorry you enacted a two year long escape plan only for me to fuck it over at the last possible moment? Like, what the fuck do you actually say to that?  
  
"It's fine," Eight said quietly. Which was... Lies. Three fucking ruined her life.  
  
Two let out a loud sigh. "So you just wanted to see the sun... All that worry over nothing," she muttered. "Okay then. You arrived alongside Gramps and Agent Three. I assume you worked alongside them during their investigations?"  
  
Three shook her head and took over. "No. We only ran into each other twice - the first time, a week ago, and today. She was with the Captain, but I was... On my own for a while." It was very nostalgic. The crushing terror and unforgiving cold had felt almost like... Don't. Don't think about it. "We eventually met up, and got the hell out of there. I hesitate to say it, but I think our investigation is over for now."  
  
The Captain nodded. "Mm. Agent Three got seperated from us early on. I did my own digging while Eight was busy and found out some interesting tidbits." Did he? Three assumed he just sat around and gave moral support the entire time. "But enough about that. Who's going to tell their story first?"  
  
There was a moment of silence. Agent Four groaned. "We'll go. I get the feeling you guys are gonna be exhausting as shit to think about, so. We'll start."  
  
Agent One nodded slowly. "It... Started a while ago. Two years ago, after that final Splatfest, I got calls from loads of people. They wanted me in commercials, and TV, and radio... I was a real celebrity. But... It wasn't like Inkopolis News. It started piling up, too many commercial spots and guest appearances and. They wanted me in movies! Actual movies! And it was great and all... But it... I couldn't." She sniffed and wrapped her arms around Two tightly, a motion that Two copied almost immediately. "And then, one day... I saw this pair of really nice shades in a store. They had these little LEDs on them and everything." Three suddenly got a _really_ bad feeling as to where this story was heading.  
  
Agent Two continued. "I came back from a trip to see my parents and Callie was just. Gone. Not at home, not at work, her manager said he hadn't seen her... It was like she'd just fallen off the face of the planet. I felt nervous, so I went to go check Octo Valley, maybe she was there. And when I got there... Octavio was gone. And when I got back to Inkopolis, the Zapfish was gone again..." Fuck. FUCK. "And that was just a week after you and Gramps left to go investigate Mount Nantai. I couldn't even call you to tell you that something was up, you were already underground. So I got desperate and I recruited a new Agent. And that's why Four is here."  
  
"We left on the first of August," the Captain recounted. "So it would've had to be... Oh, of course." He looked at Three with an equally amused and furious face. "He did it on the eighth."  
  
... _Of fucking COURSE he did_. Why wouldn't Octavio do it on that day? It was practically spitting in the face of the entire Squidbeak Splatoon that he escaped on any day with an eight in it. And waiting until the Captain and Three were out of town? That meant Agent Two was the only Agent left to investigate. Agent Two, currently involved in enough TV shows that dumping any of them to go hunt down her sister would have raised enough red flags for somebody to investigate. And given how that could lead to the discovery of the Squidbeak Splatoon? Yeah, no. There was no way Agent Two could have fought Octavio on her own.  
  
"I recruited Agent Four because she had talent, and she had drive," Agent Two said quietly. She pulled a hand off One and grabbed Four's hand. Four smiled and leaned in. "She didn't have nearly as much drive as you, Three... But she had enough talent to slide. And she did come through for me."  
  
"No problem, Boss." Four grinned cheekily and kissed Two on the cheek. "Not gonna lie, I could never turn down a cute girl... But my schedule opening up totally helped."  
  
"Don't you do Ranked all year round?" Three asked.  
  
"Normally, yeah. Me and my crew were aiming for entering the Rainbow Tournament at the end of the year. Woulda made it too, but this asshole broke my buddy's Ink Tank." That had to suck. The Rainbow Tournament was the Splat Battle equivalent of the Olympics - only came around every four years and was the biggest event in the city barring Splatfest. "Long story short, they got kicked out, but my buddy got beat up enough that he couldn't fight for a while. No way we were gonna replace him, so we ended up dropping out entirely."  
  
Three nodded. "That must've sucked."  
  
"Yeah. Don't get me wrong, we were all cool with that idea - either we win together or not at all, but it still freed up my weekdays for a couple of months." Four shrugged and nodded at the Hero Octobrush. "She gave me an Octobrush, asked if I wanted to help take the Zapfish back. Cute girl, asking me to fight? Sure, I ain't gonna ask many questions. Probably should have, though."  
  
The Captain frowned. "They took all the Zapfish again? But... I thought they updated the security protocols around the Zapfish."  
  
"They did," Marie sighed. "As I understand it, they got stolen during a match at the Zapfish Aquaplant. A dozen people dropped in midmatch, swiped them all, and then bailed."  
  
"Hm."  
  
Four grinned. "Didn't matter, 'cause I'm awesome. I kicked the hell out of everyone in my path, and nobody could beat me."  
  
"Except Octo Samurai," Two said quietly. Four froze for a split second. So did Eight. "If Sheldon hadn't been there with medical supplies..."  
  
Four let out a nervous laugh. It stopped just shy of hysterical. It was the most freaked out Three had seen Four since she'd met the Ranker. "Yeah. Well. Fucking scared me right to hell and back. But I survived, huh? All that matters. Anyways. Everything was going fine right up until we found out where Callie went..." Agent One filled her hands with the edge of her shirt. And then she lifted it up.  
  
And Three suddenly understood why the hell she had to stop the Captain from committing murder.  
  
It was a tattoo. An octopus tattoo. An octopus _brand_.  
  
Somebody had to fucking pay for this. She'd fight Octavio again if she had to.  
  
Callie was her friend.  
  
"Those glasses were Hypnoshades," Callie whispered. "And the lights were so beautiful that I just couldn't look away from them."  
  
Three swore loudly. Damn it, why didn't she find that out earlier? "Marie, did you lock them up somewhere?" Marie nodded. "Good. _Do not let Callie know where_. My files say the effects take up to an entire month to wash out of the system, and even then, that's if she developed a resistance. Don't take those glasses out to look at unless we know for certain that Callie can't get to them."  
  
"That bad?" Marie whispered. "She seems fine..."  
  
"She does. But the second she finds out where the glasses are..." Three ignored the terrified scream in her throat as she said the next sentence. "Ever seen a Salmonid after Glowflies?" A moment of terrified silence rang through the room. Three sighed. "Continue."  
  
"I just wanted to lie down and relax," Callie said quietly. "Just for a moment. And look what happened. I almost got people killed." The Captain shuffled over and gave her a hug. Marie joined in. It was all very sweet in that akward family reunion way that terrified Three.  
  
Four, thankfully, dragged attention away from it. "We managed to get her back eventually, but that involved tearing my way through Cephalon HQ. Boss was freaked out about Octavio when we got to him, apparently they repaired the Octobot King since you stepped in two years back." Huh. Yeah, Three definitely remembered the Octobot King exploding in a massive explosion. Which was the fun thing about explosions, she guessed. "Had golden extendo-fists and torpedoes and everything."  
  
Eight tapped the table. "They fixed it... But they shouldn't have been able to fix it."  
  
"Why not?" Three asked. Because answers were fucking awesome, and also because this was an interesting topic.  
  
Eight looked at Three seriously. "The Great Octoweapons, and any gear that the Octobosses use, is all made of refined Sardinium. It's why you can't damage them with ink - it bleeds off enough kinetic energy that, while not inkproof material, diverts any form of damage you can do with ink. It's the reason that only the actual organic components can be damaged." Answers! Beautiful answers!  
  
That did fit with some of what Three knew about Sardinium. "Makes sense. Sardinium on its own is lightweight, flexible, put it under a flame and you can make it take any shape you want, most military weapons are made of the stuff... Useful for making something along the lines of Octoweapons."  
  
"Right. However, if it's subjected to too much stressing in a short time span - say, making it explode? It warps incredibly badly," she explained. "Any form of tensile strength essentially falls to nothing."  
  
Three thought for a moment. She hadn't known about the warping thing, Sardinium was a highly valued substance in Inkopolis - a single piece of it could sell for thousands. "Am I correct in guessing that once it warps, it can't be recovered?"  
  
Eight nodded and placed her Octoshot on the table. "That's right. All Octoshots have trace amounts of Sardinium in them. It's why we don't bother attempting to repair any weapon that doesn't belong to an elite, it's typically not worth the resources." She hummed loudly and tapped the tube connecting the ink canister to the central body. "It'd be easier to domesticate Salmonids than to get broken Sardinium to work again."  
  
Okay... So how would a normal engineer handle that? "Could you layer another material alongside it to reinforce it again?" Eight shook her head. "And I'll go ahead and guess that you can't reinforce it with more Sardinium?" Eight nodded. Damn. She was hoping there was a way to fix her old Roller, but guess not. So the majority of Octoweapons were Sardinium-based. Sardinium couldn't be repaired once broken. And the Octobot King was repaired despite having a Sardinium base. "So there's a missing link here that none of us are seeing."  
  
"Essentially," Eight sighed.  
  
Four snapped her fingers. "Helloooo? Earth to nerds! You there?" Oh, shut the fuck up. "I am an idiot who doesn't talk materials in weaponry. Tell me what the fuck this means."  
  
Eight placed her hands on the table. "It means that it's physically impossible to repair the Octobot King. Time, resources, scientific understanding - there's no means currently known to Octarian society to repair Sardinium." Which meant either somebody was lying, or they'd found a workaround to that problem. Either way, it created a problem that Three wanted answers for.  
  
More answers she didn't have. Great.  
  
Four shook her head and yawned. "Anyways, I was awesome, grabbed a Rainmaker, and slammed it right into Octavio's dumb stupid face. The Boss grabbed Callie, Sheldon drove by with his hovertruck," What? Sheldon came by with a hovertruck?! "Threw Octavio into a snowglobe, packed up the Great Zapfish, and hauled ass back to the surface. I wasn't super sure we wanted to stick around after that mess. Badda bing badda boom, that's our story. Oh, and the Boss? Fantastic with a Charger. Beautiful, even."  
  
Three ignored Four layering more compliments onto Agent Two as she contemplated the tale. So Octavio had broken loose, kidnapped and hypnotized Callie, and stolen all the Zapfish again... Wait. Callie got the Hypnoshades first, and freed Octavio second. Which meant that _somebody else_ had planted them there for her to see - somebody who couldn't have been colluding with Octavio, because if they had, they would've broken him out without bothering to brainwash Callie. Which meant that there was either a third party out there that they were totally unaware of, or Octavio was way smarter than they thought. Neither option was really something Three cared to think about.  
  
The Captain cleared his throat as the Cuttlefish Clan Family Hugfest of '18 broke up. "So, that was an interesting tale there, young Agent. On behalf of the entire Squidbeak Splatoon, I would like to say thank you."  
  
"No problem, old man." Four reached across the table and shook the Captain's hand. "Uh, dude? You're supposed to let go?" The Captain leaned across the table and widened his eyes. Ah, there it was. She was wondering when this was going to happen.  
  
The Captain smiled coolly. "You hurt my grandaughters, and you won't live to see sunrise." He let go and returned to his seat. Four gulped and nodded in return. "Good! Now that we know what's been happening with the Octarians, we can take over."  
  
Eight nodded. "We can. Do you mind, Three?"  
  
"Nah." Three had a lot to go over in her head anyways. Letting everyone else go first would let her organize her thoughts. "Go for it."  
  
Eight played with her hands for a moment. "The way out that I found was a series of tunnels through Octo Valley. I had the bad luck to run into Agent Three at the end of it, but even if she hadn't been there... It wouldn't have mattered. The kettle I was going to crawl out of hadn't been working for a year." Then why did she head to that kettle? "And the reason I went there... It was this poem in my head. I'd been thinking of it for a while, but... It just. Led me there."  
  
A poem? Like... Mind control? "What do you mean?" Callie asked. "It led you there?"  
  
" _Pale summer moonlight shimmers on the seafloor. An octopus, unaware that dawn will bring capture, Rests within a trap, dreaming fleeting dreams_ ," Eight recited calmly. Three could grasp exactly none of that. But then, Three had trouble understanding any media that wasn't music. Maybe it had some bizarre Octarian significance, like a hymn or something. "I heard it in the barracks one day. Maybe it was somebody else saying it, or I dreamed it up... But when I followed it, it got louder in my head."  
  
The Captain frowned. "You did seem awfully distracted when we came across you." Distracted was a loose term. More like having a meltdown where nobody could see it. Crying, pacing back and forth, muttering to herself, it wasn't a stretch to say that she'd looked and sounded like she'd lost her entire mind. "I'd thought you were just guarding the kettle, and we were going to head back to the surface before taking a walk to Octo Ridge."  
  
Okay, so not only had Three caused her two years of paranoia and fear, she'd ruined the futile escape plan of a possibly hallucinating girl who just wanted to see the sun. Wow. Three had thought she'd finally run out of ways to feel guilty about things, but man, did Octarians make some great oil to throw on that fire!  
  
"When we fought, I kept hearing it in my head. Over and over... And then it started fusing with my memory of Calamari Inkantation. I couldn't focus... Which is when that thing attacked," Eight continued. Three hadn't found a single thing out about that thing until it decided to hunt her down. "It was... Was..." Her eyes went blank for a moment. "I can't remember what it looked like. That's... Annoying." Three would have more words for that than annoying.  
  
Marie nodded slowly. "If it caught you by surprise when your mind wasn't in a stable position, then I'm not surprised you can't remember it. You're lucky to remember it happened at all."  
  
Eight frowned and looked at her hands. It was only just now that Three noticed the tips of her fingers were a barely visible light red, shining a little under the ceiling light. "I remember falling for a moment... But then... That's where I forgot everything." Her voice lowered dramatically. "When I woke up, Mister Cuttlefish was nearby, and we were in a big train station. It looked abandoned and broken down... And I couldn't remember anything." Oh. Wonderful. So Three, while possessed, had tried to attack an amnesiac. Super. GOT ANY MORE GUILT FOR HER? OR ARE YOU DONE?  
  
The Captain nodded slowly. "For the first three days, she didn't even know how to _speak_ ," he explained. "It wasn't until we were halfway out of there she remembered how to even say hello." That was not even remotely okay. Kamabo had hell to pay for.  
  
The girl besides her pulled two devices out from her ink tank and handed one to Three. "I picked this up for you, by the way." Thank god. CQ-80 Employee Model. "Thought you might want it back after you dropped it."  
  
"Thanks," Three replied. It'd been a while since she'd gotten some of her shit back. And having it back meant she didn't have to dig through eighteen years worth of electronics to find something to boot up all the computer files on. Which was always nice.  
  
Eight nodded. "We wandered down the railway for hours, until we came across this big open station room with a telephone in the center, and it was ringing. When I went to answer it, it called me User 10008 and that I was an applicant for something. I'm still not sure what." Given the sort of shit down in Kamabo, it was probably for the better. "It said we were in the Deepsea Metro Central Station, and that it was to help us get to the Promised Land." Deepsea Metro... Three had found a few files pertaining to that place.  
  
Mostly just that it was sealed off unless authority was given. "It gave you a doohickey, didn't it?" the Captain asked.  
  
"Yes," Eight replied as she pulled out the CQ-80. It was white and red compared to the blue and black of the Employee model. "A CQ-80, my way around the facilities. A train arrived, and we got on. The conductor told us that if we wanted to reach the Promised Land - here on the surface - I had to pass tests and gather the four Thangs."  
  
"Tests nothing! Those places were glorified splat chambers!" the Captain hissed. What?! What kind of testing was that?! "Some of them were just there to make sure Eight got splatted enough times she didn't start feeling confident, I'll bet you that!" That was an incredibly dangerous idea and Three did not like it. Entire areas designed just to splat somebody? What the hell.  
  
Eight nodded annoyedly. "The tests did get irritating from time to time. I most likely wouldn't have made it if Marina and Pearl hadn't found us." The band? Three still had no fucking clue who Pearl was.  
  
"Off The Hook?" Callie wondered. It made sense, she was a musician once, the two others were musicians, so... Maybe they knew each other? "They helped you?"  
  
Eight nodded and pointed at Three. "Apparently, you left a walkie talkie behind on the surface somewhere, and they found it." Really? Three dropped her damn walkie back on the surface? Damn it, now she had to go hunt that down. Her phone only worked on the surface, but the walkie utilized space-time distortions to work anywhere. "They helped me skip a few tests with hacking. I mean, I went back and finished all of them legitimately, but I just couldn't figure those ones out at the time, you know?"  
  
Marie steepled her fingers and loomed menacingly. Or at least as menacingly as Marie could manage. Which, to be fair, was about as menacing as a sea slug. "How many of these tests were there?"  
  
"Eighty of them," Eight replied. "Some were easy. Some were just weird and impossible to even fail at. Others were..." Her hand reached up and adjusted the straps on her Ink Tank. If she hadn't been sitting right next to her, Three would never have heard the tiny whimpers she made. Damn it, what the hell happened to this girl? "Not."  
  
"Can you describe a few?" Four asked cautiously. "Not to doubt you or anything, but this is weird as hell." Eight nodded and pressed the bootup button on the CQ-80. A smooth synthetic ding rang out as the holographic display popped into existence. An array of coloured lines formed in the air, intercrossing and lined with white dots. "Um. Okay?"  
  
"Just to help my memory." The cursor rolled smoothly across the map, words and symbols flashing above the map faster than Three could recognize. "Some, I had to transport a large eight-ball to a switch somewhere to pass. A few of them, I had to grind on ride-rails and shoot every target I saw, and if I missed any, I got to fall into the abyss and get warped back to a Spawnpoint... Ugh, Righteous Rail Station can go to hell. There were a few where it told me to defeat all the enemies within a time limit. Sometimes I got a Special and had to traverse entire tests with it. They had unlimited time on them, so it wasn't as harsh as it would usually be. I remember one or two of them where I had to collect eight data-points to clear the test... A few of them were just get to the goal. And there were the weird ones that I only had to beat once. They were weird."  
  
"Weird how?" Four asked.  
  
"Stuff like pinball, or don't get touched by ink, or shoot a balloon just right so that it destroyed every crate around it, or match a shape by shooting crates nearby. I dunno," Eight finished. Her voice filled with pride and superiority. "It took me a whole week... But I _beat_ them. I beat every single test they threw at me. I got all the Thangs. I _earned_ every single memory that they took from me. And I could escape."  
  
"And then they tried to kill us," the Captain grouched.  
  
"And then they tried to kill us," Eight sighed. "We put together all the Thangs - I thought it was a portal or a teleporter... It wasn't."  
  
Three hesitated to ask her next question. "What was it?"  
  
"A blender." A general sensation of What The Fuck hung in the room. Three had no idea what to say to that. What do you even say? Oh, that's neat? Because it wasn't. "We nearly got blended... But then Agent Three saved us." Everyone looked at Three. Eight was smiling and aaargh. Uh, uh, quick. Plans. Where are you, plans? Divert attention! Uh, go!  
  
Say something smart! "I only punched the blender because  I fell through the roof. That's all." Everybody stared harder. Shit. Was that not smart? Dammit! BRAIN, HELP US! "It was only glass, nothing major to worry about." Staring intensifies. AAAAAAAAGH.  
  
"It was very brave," Eight said quietly. Damn it, why was she smiling like that? "A lot braver than I would have been."  
  
"Are you kidding?" Three replied, downplaying the endless torment of the black ruins of her soul. "Going through those tests would've required way more bravery than I have." Marie made a motion with her eyebrows. It was an intensely annoying motion. It was also insinuating something, and when would Marie learn that Three did not know shit about body language? "Don't kid yourself. The Captain would never recruit anybody who wasn't spectacular, okay?"  
  
Eight's cheeks changed colour slightly. Why were Callie and Four sniggering? "Thank you. A-Anyways... After you came through the roof and saved us, Marina downloaded the map data off your CQ-80 and found a route out of there. I got all the way up to the elevator out, when... You appeared."  
  
**FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC**. The second time this girl has tried to get up to the surface, and Three fucking ruined it. Again. God damn it. She just couldn't stop ruining things, could she? "And I had the damn goop on me, didn't I?" Eight nodded. "God fucking damn it."  
  
"Goop?" Callie enquired.  
  
"Around her eye and ears. It'd taken over her mind - she couldn't even get out words." Three was barely even awake at that point in time. It'd just lulled her right to sleep. The worst part had been that Three knew what it was fucking doing, and she still couldn't stop it. It just wormed its way in. "I managed to shoot it off her after a long fight, but it left her unconscious for the rest of the action." Which had been fucking infuriating, let Three tell you.  
  
"That would explain her eye," Callie muttered. What eye? "Three, did you... Did you not notice?"  
  
"... What are you talking about?"  
  
Callie pulled a hand mirror from her pocket and handed it over. Three snatched it, ripped off her headset and stared at herself in the mirror. Parts of her ear were tinged green, with a minor layer of skin visibly seared off. The green continued up the right side of her face, visible burns continuing all the way around her eye and into the socket. The majority of her eye was perfectly fine, still white, not burnt or stinging, but one of her formerly purple eyes had been shifted to that same greenish-blue colour of the goop.  
  
"Why didn't anyone tell me?" she said more calmly than she felt. It was still on her face. It was still in her fucking head.  
  
"I didn't even notice," the Captain whispered. "I didn't see you from that angle after I went to check on my grandaughters." That's understandable. But it is in _her fucking head_.  
  
Four shrugged. "I thought it was a fashion statement. Haven't see you since you decided to tank my Rank since June last year - which by the by, still not over." Understandable, but it **is still in her fucking head**!  
  
"Thought you knew," Callie replied. Marie nodded. "You seemed fine with it, so we thought it was an injury you got a while back." That's fine, and understandable, _**BUT IT IS STILL IN HER FUCKING HEAD!**_  
  
"... Heh. Fine. That's fine." Everyone gave her a concerned look. "No, seriously. If I went through all that and didn't get a rad scar out of it, I'd be almost offended." Why is it still there? Ink scars usually fade after an hour. It'd been two, so why was it still there?  
  
Callie moved over and sighed. "Still getting banged up, huh?"  
  
"No. Shut up." Three didn't need help. She wanted it out.  
  
"Marie? Medical supplies?" Three didn't need help. She wanted it out.  
  
"Don't need them." Three didn't need help. She wanted it out.  
  
"I'll get them," Marie sighed as she got up. "Seriously Three, we're not just your coworkers. We're your friends, remember? We want to help you. Please continue, Eight." Out out out.  
  
Eight nodded, as Marie pulled a large chest out of a cupboard. "I untied the Captain, and we dragged Three all the way up to the surface. From there, Marina and Pearl picked us up in a... They called it a helicopter?" The Captain nodded. "We were almost free and clear, but then the facility we were in started rising out of the water, a titantic statue piloted by the same goop that possessed Agent Three and had operated the telephone I spoke to at the start of the week."  
  
The Captain sighed. "I'm sure of it. It had to be."  
  
"Be what, Gramps?" Callie asked as she threw the chest open.  
  
The Captain crossed his arms and gave what he probably thought was a dramatic pause before continuing onwards. "One of _his_ creations." Oh, really? So that meant one of the Professor's creations off the list for sure. "He said he was an AI construct. He was supposed to teach us Inklings about everything that humans had learned about in the past. But apparently, he found us a bit less than he was _wanting_."  
  
Eight nodded and flicked the CQ-80s controls to show a picture of a massive statue sitting right in the middle of Inkopolis Bay. And yeah, there was the Kamabo logo. But they'd fallen into Octo Valley, which was miles away from Inkopolis, and if they emerged from that in the bay, it would have been another mile... Wonderful. More questions. "It said that from the best and brightest test subjects, it created a sludge of DNA. It hoped to create new lifeforms from what was left over." She scrolled over to the next image, the same statue with a massive cannon emerging from its mouth. "And it threatened to destroy Inkopolis." Wait, how did it know the name of the city?  
  
... It probably had spies there, didn't it? Fucking hell. "And that's when Marina came up with a plan to destroy it!" the Captain cheered. "She had prototype superbombs launched and attached to the side of the statue - if it was completely covered in ink, it'd stop charging! Eight went down to detonate all the bombs manually, while I directed her to each one!"  
  
"As it turns out, even if we prevented it from charging, it still wanted to destroy anything it could get its hands on," Eight continued. "It launched the cannon, but Pearl repelled it with the Ultimate Killer Wail! And about... A minute after that, Three woke up, and it was all over," she concluded, turning off the CQ-80. Three missed something called an Ultimate Killer Wail by one minute?! PROOF. No justice in the universe. Callie enforced that idea by getting a ball of cotton and dampening it with some liquid. Ergh, that was gonna hurt.  
  
Four laughed wildly like a jackass. "Man, that sounds rad! We didn't hear that, so you must've finished your fight around the same time that we did, sometime around six."  
  
"Sounds right," Three groused as Callie applied the cottonball to Three's eye. It _hurt_. Make it _stop_. At least she knew why the hell her investigation had suddenly become a ruin. That solved a few of her answers all at once. "Captain, you mentioned you did your own investigation earlier?"  
  
It was times like this that Three was fully reminded that the Captain was fully capable of kicking the asses of everybody in the room without having to actually try. That razor-sharp gaze saw everything. "While Agent Eight was busy with the tests, I investigated with denizens of the train. I didn't find much, but I did discover a few secrets. Some of them were former test subjects who couldn't hack it, but others apparently worked for the place."  
  
Callie hummed as she rubbed something on Three's ear. It stung, but Three would do anything to just make it not fucking be that shade again. "Really? What were they like?"  
  
"Lots of oddballs, ones I haven't seen since the Great Turf War." the Captain admitted. "Sea angels, ping-pong tree sponges, gulper eels, longsnout dogfish, all sorts of people down there. They all seemed rather reluctant to speak to me, though... But I gotta say, that fellow Iso Padre helped out quite a lot!"  
  
"Iso Padre is cool!" Eight cheered. "Any time I gave him a set of Mem Cakes to look at, he gave me a ticket for a store on the surface!" ... Why would he have those?  
  
The Captain nodded firmly. "You bet. He told me a lot about the Metro. He told me that at least a fair number of test subjects were non-Cephalopods, and they all dropped out after just a few tests. Those tests were built and customized solely for Cephalopods, I'm afraid. The AI took a look at us, saw we were the most human looking creatures around, and chose us as the dominant species."  
  
Explained a lot. But if some of those tests were lethal, then why did the AI want creatures that couldn't even use Spawnpoint technology? Gah. More questions. "Darn," Callie sighed. "I managed to sooth a lot of the burnt skin from your eye and ear, but I'm not sure how to remove the stain."  
  
... Three was gonna be stuck with this forever. That. Okay. Three could. Yeah. She could deal with it. Ignore it, if you don't pay attention to it, it isn't fucking there. Don't think about it, don't think about it, _don't think about it_. "It's fine, Callie. You did your best."  
  
Four yawned. "So a bunch of weirdo extinct Fishfolk were down there? How'd they survive?"  
  
"Not sure. But I know two things for certain from my investigation!" The Captain grinned and pulled his glasses off. "One is that the Metro exists inside a kettle. Or at the very least, in some form of space-warping area. Eighty stations, all of them the size of an average Octarian dome, with an interconnecting subway infrastructure... They'd have to be set up underneath the ocean to exist in real space. But we fell down there from Octo Valley inside Mount Nantai - a mile away from any water sources."  
  
"Which begs the question," Eight realised.  
  
"How does Kamabo Corp have access to kettles," they said in unison.  
  
"The second is that..." He breathed in and sighed. "They stole a rather large amount of information from my old friend, Ammoses Shellendorf." WHAT?!  
  
"Isn't he dead?" Marie asked loudly. "Didn't we go to his funeral? Didn't we see his body in the casket?"  
  
"He should be," Three replied furiously. "Sheldon had to close the store for a week, he was so upset. If he's still alive, then he has way too much to answer for." Sheldon had been hit really hard by his grandpappy's death three years ago. The poor guy was in _tears_ for a month. A lot of kids had tried to tiptoe their way around it, to try and make him feel better, but Sheldon still got exhausted enough from casual conversation that he closed the store a few hours early most days. He eventually got over it, but it hit him incredibly hard. "What proof do you have?"  
  
"The Equippers," the Captain replied coolly. "Ammoses had been working on a prototype for years. But it went missing after he died. I looked for it, but that went nowhere. One of the first things Eight and I saw down there was an Equipper. I don't like to say it... But I do think we need to go back at some point and investigate more thoroughly. Not immediately, but eventually."  
  
"D-Do I have to go?" Eight asked shakily. The Captain shook his head. "Okay... Thank you."  
  
Four interrupted like an asshole and pointed at Three dramatically. "If that's all, I wanna know what the fuck Three was up to! She told me earlier that she broke almost all her gear, and I wanna know how!" Three ignored the surprised yells that everyone gave.  
  
Three yawned. "I'll make it quick, since I actually want to go home. That thing that attacked us was some kind of corrupted Octarian. I'm willing to bet you ran into your fair share of them as well?" Eight nodded. "Green skin, black eyes, blue tentacles, and their Shooter left behind this funky green ink. I'm not sure how or why it works, but that gunk has a real bad effect on living things. I think it brainwashes them or something like that. It's real bad."  
  
Callie shuddered. "Seriously? That's like a nightmare..."  
  
"It was. I would've wound up next to the Captain and Eight, but I, uh." Oh man, this was embarrassing to say out loud. "I _kind_ of hit a pipe midfall and tumbled onto solid ground into the outer reaches of the facility."  
  
Marie laughed. Like an asshole. Man, she and Four were actually good together, weren't they? "Oh, never change, Three. You keep your hideously bad luck away from me." Don't say that while smiling. Never say that while smiling at somebody. It's an awful thing to do, even if the sentiment is sadly completely and utterly true in every possible way.  
  
Three sighed. "Well, I ended up in an entirely seperate area of the facility. After some searching, I got my hands on this Employee CQ-80. Had a map preloaded and everything. According to some files I found, the area I was in kinda happened to be some kind of experimentation sector. It used to see heavy use, but after a better method of Sanitization - still no fucking idea what that is or means, by the way - was discovered, the entire area just got abandoned completely. Which is good, because there was more medical fuckery going on there than I'm okay with."  
  
Callie blinked. "Medical... Fuckery? Care to explain?"  
  
"That weird green ink that was messing with all the Octarians was loaded up into IV drips, and those were just scattered all over the place. Operating rooms with inkstains and groups of creepy corrupted Octolings in the corner staring at nothing. They didn't even react to me coming in, if you can believe it. Some rooms were worse, just had blenders filled with green ink. I got right the fuck out of there fast as I could," Three explained. "And that's ignoring the fact there were no damn lights in there. I could've looked into it more thoroughly, but that would've meant staying in that creepy hospital any longer so fuck that."  
  
Marie blinked. "Oh. Okay? You just left?"  
  
Three shook her head. "No. I accidentally fell through a hole in the floor and ended up in a big maze. BUT, the maze had decent lighting, and I wasn't being snuck up on being fucking Octolings in surgical gear, so I took the damn change in scenery. On the one hand, I had a map on the CQ-80. On the other, it was still a really big maze, and even looking at the damn map, I got lost a few times." She frowned and flicked the machine on and let it boot up. It let out the same ding as Eight's, but instead of smooth lines and dots, created a large grid of rectangles connected by white lines. Some rectangles had pink lights on them, others had yellow lights, and a majority of them had little demon faces on them. "It was a really awful place, that maze."  
  
"Did you find out anything at all?" Callie asked.  
  
Three nodded. "Yeah. Whenever I found a safe spot, there was usually a computer nearby. So I would usually take as many files as I could carry onto the CQ-80 and then read them at my leisure." There was some fucked up stuff on those machines, Three would tell you that. "All sorts of crap. For starters, I have a list of every single applicant that Kamabo Corp ever had. It's not exactly pretty, though. No personal details either, so I don't even know their names. Care to take a look?"  
  
The Captain nodded. "Do it." Three switched over to the DATA tab and opened up Kamabo_List to show everybody. "What is it?"  
  
"A fairly accurate look into the AI's mindset. Check it out." Three slowly scrolled through the list. Each entry had a picture of the subject's face, their test number, how many tests they cleared, and their current status. It started off innocently enough, with various Fishfolk, Cephalopods, Urchins and Anemones being shown in no real particular order. Only Cephalopods ever cleared more than ten tests, while Anemones rarely seemed to clear any. Every single subject from 1 to 1000 had their status marked as REMOVED FROM TESTING. "Don't think I need to elaborate on what that means from an insane AI."  
  
Eight reached her hand out to touch the screen. "So many people... And they're all... Gone."  
  
"Being simply killed or exterminated honestly seems like it's the more decent option here," Three replied. "I know it sounds harsh, but after the 1000 mark, it gets worse." After the 1000 mark, the status tags changed to either SANITIZED or BLENDED, with REMOVED FROM TESTING very rarely showing up. After 2000, all non-Cephalopods were removed from testing. After 5000, Inklings were removed from the pool. After 6000, the elderly were removed. After 8000, the Octolings started getting closer and closer to identical, and by 9000, almost every single one was a dead ringer for Eight. And then after 9500, every single subject was simply listed as BLENDED. The list ended, an image of Eight staring at the camera.

  
  
**Subject 10008**  
 **Tests Cleared: 80/80**  
 **Status: Unknown**

  
  
Eight grinned weakly. "I actually did get out, didn't I? To the surface?" Three gave her a pat on the shoulder, and the Captain smiled reassuringly. "I still can't quite believe it. I thought it was going to be my tomb."  
  
" _Tomb_?" Four asked disbelievingly. "Boss, get a load of this chick. Who uses the word 'tomb' in casual conversation like that?"  
  
"Three," Marie and Callie said in unison.  
  
"Jerks," Three muttered. "My vocabulary is fine."  
  
Callie raised an eyebrow like she thought Three was an idiot. Which, for the record, Three wasn't. Three was the most rational person in this damn room. "Three, the last time we spoke, you threatened to submerge my demented idiocy beneath the eternal wasteland of your blackened soul." That was a _lie_ , Callie _loved_ lying. "And then you put on that stupid cape and tried to look cool." Oh, were we doing this? We were **DOING** this, let's go. Three vs Callie. One vee one. Let's go. Right now.  
  
You see Agent Four laughing over there, in the corner? **THE BITCH CORNER?** They were laughing. Because they DID NOT KNOW about how cloaks? Were _awesome_. Even if Three was some stupid little Ranker runt with no Agent training at all, she'd _still_ be cooler than Four, because Three had a motherfucking cloak. Look at her jacket. A stupid banana jacket. Made of bananas. Which were gross, and ugly, and bright fucking yellow. Do you see that ugly child over there? Do you see them? They have no cloak. Which means they were lesser than Agent Three.  
  
**_ARE WE CLEAR ON THE MATTER?_**  
  
"FIRST OF ALL," Three yelled. "It's a cloak. Second of all, a cloak is practical. Capes are for fashion. And we both know that I detest fashion. AND THIRD OF ALL, I DON'T SEE YOU WEARING A COOL CLOAK, SO YOU DON'T GET TO JUDGE ME!" They just did not understand. Nobody understood. It's hard being a cool and practical lady. It's hard, and nobody understands.  
  
Callie and Four had, at this point, regressed into pure orbs of incoherent laughter. They would not be missed after they were banished to another realm for their impertinence. "I think it looks cool," Eight said nicely, because Eight is a GOOD FUCKING PERSON. "I want a cloak too. A yellow one."  
  
"We can totally do that," Three promised. "The moment I become fully rested, I will do everything within my power to find you a totally sweet cloak."  
  
"Yes!"  
  
The Captain sighed. "Back to the matter at hand," he interrupted, "Is there anything else on this document worth mentioning?"  
  
Three sobered quickly and nodded. "Yeah, there was. The list I had on my phone isn't quite as extensive as yours, Captain, but I do have a number of Octarian dossiers with me." Three scrolled back up the list to the 8000 range and stopped. "I don't have data on all of these people, but the ones I do have show that every single test subject, regardless of what... Gen they were? Don't know what that is, every ID number here falls between 800 and 1000."  
  
Eight frowned. "Between 800 and 1000? That's... Troubling. For multiple reasons."  
  
"You said that Octavio recruited you, right? And he called you 85-888." Agent Four noted. "For his... Frontline, wasn't it?"  
  
A somber look crossed Eight's face. "Yes. But I was just part of the Frontline Defense unit. DJ Octavio spent a lot of time reassigning certain Octolings. I was never sure why. Like I said earlier, he said we were all special somehow. By the time I found my exit, all of his personal staff was in that ID range. Bodyguards, spies, chefs, mechanics, all of them. If they weren't 800-1000, then I never met them." ... Okay, that just raises _further_ questions. "And when anybody pressed him about it, he'd just dodge the question entirely and move on."  
  
Marie tapped the table curiously. "Perhaps... He made a deal with this facility for some reason?"  
  
The Captain shook his head. "No. Octavio may be a right jerk, but that's a line he wouldn't cross. His pride wouldn't let him do that." People do change, though... "Octavio refuses to throw lives away. It's why he spent most of his time out on the battlefield instead of strategizing - he's darn awful at it, and he knows it."  
  
"Food for thought," Callie decided. "We can talk about that later. Three, what else do you have for us?"  
  
Three flicked over to a new file, Great_OWeapons, and ignored the furious yelling from the Captain. Yeah, she'd thought it'd get that response. Probably best to get it over with now. "I found these down in a hanger, near the bottom of that maze. Not active, but still." Six photos spread out on the screen. In each one, a blue and green version of the Great Octoweapons sat unactivated. "Every Great Octoweapon except for Octostomp and the Octobot King. Not sure what happened to Stomp, but the files say it wasn't feasible to recreate the Octobot King for some reason."  
  
"I know what happened to Octostomp," Eight replied. She grabbed her Octoshot and smiled innocently, like a kid at their first Turf War. It was surprisingly terrifying. Three liked it. "It was remarkably easy to deal with, for one of the legendary weapons."  
  
"Octostomp was kinda... Yeah," Four finished lamely. "I fought him too. Laaaame."  
  
A moment of silence passed through the room as they contemplated how incredibly and utterly boring and lame Octostomp was.  
  
Okay, moment over. "So I found all these. Apparently, Kamabo Corp was trying to replicate them for some reason. My best guess is that if they could figure out the Octoweapons, they could figure out any form of Octarian technology. Other than that, no clue."  
  
"I see Octowhirl, Octomaw and Octonozzle," Callie said slowly. "But I have no idea what the other three are..."  
  
Eight nodded. "They were the three Great Octoweapons we didn't manage to remodel before Agent Three hit us. And once she started tearing the Great Octoweapons to pieces anyway, it was decided to trash the idea of remaking them and focus on new technology." Huh. That made some kind of sense. Three had no idea she'd forced that kind of decision on them.  
  
The Captain pointed to each one in turn. The first was a large attack tank with a high-tech fishing rod attached to the front. "Octoreeler. It used the rod to either latch onto Inklings and throw them into the distance, or used the rod to cast explosives further than could be thrown manually." The second was what looked like an anemone with some kind of device in each tendril. "Octoblitz. It can't move, same as Octonozzle, but it can launch nearly any sort of Subweapon. Bombs, Ink Mines, Sprinklers, Splash Walls, Beakons, and a few days before the war ended we found it could even launch Inkstrikes." The last one was a cartoonishly mechanized octopus with a large nozzle on the front. "Octofog. The nozzle on the front could spray Toxic Mist, but the real danger was the drill on the top of its head, let it act almost like a Kraken."  
  
"Not to insult anyone in the Great Turf War, but how did you guys have so much trouble with any of those big dudes?" Four asked. "I spent less time than five minutes dealing with Octostomp, and I'd bet that the new girl didn't have much trouble either."  
  
"Same thing as Octavio and me," the Captain replied sadly. "Time and location. Back in the day, all we had to fight with were Bamboozlers. The first major Inktech innovation ever created, and it helped us turn the tide of the war." He lifted his cane and pointed it at the door, eyes sharpening like steel. "A decade later, we developed Splattershots, faster and more reliable than our old guns. That was ninety years ago, imagine how much weapons have improved since then?"  
  
Three nodded slowly. "Yeah... These days, people complain if a Shooter doesn't fire sixty shots per second. Motorized firing mechanism, comfort weights, piping, ink recycling, most standard weapons these days would've ended that war in a month, in a week. The Bamboozler was a good weapon for the times, but..."  
  
The Captain put down his cane and closed his eyes. "As for location, most of those weapons were designed to work together. Octostomp and Octowhirl could fill entire fields with ink, Octomaw could swallow entire Splatoons whole after Octoreeler herded them into place. Meanwhile, on the defensive, Octonozzle and Octoblitz could shut down entire areas of combat, and Octofog provided cover and distractions for the Octobot King to take advantage of. All of them in one place basically meant that the Octarians won that battle... Right up until we developed Bamboozlers."  
  
"A last resort. For if we survived," Marie said as she looked at the screen. "If we managed to survive any sort of cannon launched at Inkopolis, then how the hell were we meant to survive the Great Octoweapons running wild in the wreckage afterwards?"  
  
That was grim. Three had trouble with a few of those, and she was good. Hell, she was an Inkling - the only way to fight those things was with ink. Anybody who wasn't one of those would have to be somebody right out of a storybook - and Three didn't put much stock in stories. Too much room for exaggeration. Actually, she couldn't even think of a way to fight an Octoweapon outside of those small arenas at all.  
  
"Were there..." Eight started. Her body stiffened up, and it probably wasn't a stretch to think she was recalling something about the Metro. "Were there any others down there? Because. Because I." She gulped slowly. "I fought three others down in the Metro. Octo Oven, Octo Samurai and Octo Shower." ... Ah.  
  
Four blinked. "Wait, for real? I fought those guys too. Weird as hell, right?"  
  
Three looked at them both seriously. They both fought the same creatures, new enough that they weren't considered Octoweapons, dangerous enough to be considered sizable roadblocks... Why would Kamabo copy those? "Hold on. Let me look." Three resized the holographic screen and tuned out the outside world as she scanned the records. Schematics for the Octoweapons, parts needed to build them, mentions of a Sanitized pilot, proposals for enhancing the Octoweapons, there had to be something. There had to be something she wasn't seeing...  
  
There. A numbered list of large-scale weapons. Octostomp was listed as the first, and there were... Sixteen entries in total. Sixteen, divide in half you get eight, so the second half should have what she was looking for in any detail. There. Numbers nine through sixteen. Octo Oven, Octo Samurai, Octo Shower, Octo Coil, Octo Engine, Octo Wing, Octo Launch, Octo Champion. The curious part about them was that they seemed... Patchwork. The Great Octoweapons were single units built for a single purpose. Meanwhile, these... Octobosses seemed more like five or six pieces stapled together to create a new whole.  
  
Eight and Four said they fought Oven, Samurai and Shower... Oven was number ten, Samurai was twelve, and Shower was fourteen. They had been... Ah. There it was. Kamabo had stolen the three Octobosses after Four had shredded them. They had been analysing the machines when Eight had wound up in the Metro. The AI then took them, did whatever the fuck Sanitization was on them, and then placed them in four testing grounds as an obstacle for Eight to get around.  
  
"I found it," Three announced. "There were eight new machines ready to be used, but Eight ended up demolishing three of them. The remaining five are still down there, but they're not active." Nobody responded. Three looked up from the CQ-80 to see Eight with tears in her eyes with the Captain next to her trying to calm her down. "Uh. Did I miss something?"  
  
Three visibly saw Callie about to say something when Eight interrupted with quite possibly the worst lie in history. "No. Nothing's wrong. I'm fine." A wobbly smile worked its way onto her face. "I beat three of them, huh? Good. That means I'm a good fighter. I'm _good_. I'm _okay_." ... Three was not going to touch that with a million mile pole. "What else is there? I'm _very interested_ in whatever else you found."  
  
Never had a topic been shut down so definitively hard. There were perhaps actual deaths with less definitive endings. "... Okay. Uh, the Octobosses you fought, Kamabo stole them after Four was done with them. They were trying to pick them apart when you appeared. They must've been short on ideas for their fucked up tests, because they decided to just upgrade them and throw them in your way." Eight nodded slowly. "It's actually pretty odd, as those Octobosses were patchwork as it is. No idea why the hell Kamabo would be interested in them."  
  
"Maybe they were collecting," Four replied. "They got the Octoweapons, had to get the Octobosses."  
  
Maybe. "Next topic. There's a lot of little stuff I want to mention, but we can go over that when we decide to revisit the topic of Kamabo in the future. I have two more things I want to say." Three flicked over to the next file and resized the screen as she enlarged several images at once. "So. These are what broke all my damn weapons. They're just wandering around that area, fighting whenever they bump into one another. A few files I found indicated that they're actually made of the green ink stuff."  
  
"Wait, what is that?" Marie asked.  
  
"It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen," Callie said.  
  
"Because it isn't," Four realised. "There's no sealife features in that thing at all."  
  
"That looks like the statue," Eight murmured.  
  
"Oh no," the Captain breathed.  
  
The first image was of a creature. It was like an Inkling, but not. It didn't have a beak, or gills. Instead, it had simple rounded ears, a large bulbous nose and a thick patch of some weird material underneath it. It wore dark blue overalls with a green shirt, with a hat on top with a big green M on it. "I have reason to believe that the AI was attempting to recreate humans."  
  
Silence reigned as Three showed the other images. An impossibly tall muscular man in a blue suit wearing a helmet marked with a falcon. Another wielded a sword and shield with longer and sharper ears than Three had seen on anyone. Another wore armour all over its body, with a massive cannon replacing one of its arms. There was one of a small figure, almost a child, wielding a baseball bat. A woman in a dress holding a parasol. Multiple swordsmen. Not just humanoids either. A hunched over creature covered in hair, some kind of upright lizard with a spiked shell, strange puffballs, animals shooting lightning, and that wasn't even counting the robot.  
  
Four was the first to speak. "What. The fuck. Are those?"  
  
"Mutants," Three replied. "The AI wanted to recreate the old world. But it just couldn't manage it. I ran into them a lot trying to get out. They're tough, with a capital T. This one," Three enlarged an image of a large lizard with a giant tongue. "Is the one that broke my damn Roller. It ate one of its friends and turned it into an egg."  
  
"How many are dead?" the Captain growled dangerously.  
  
"None," Three replied honestly. "My gear couldn't deal with them. One of the lizards breathed fire at me and melted my Bomb Launcher, one of the swordsmen cut my damn Charger in half, the Inkjet broke down after I had to use it to dodge some of them, the Missile Launchers couldn't fit through some of the vents, and my Bubble Wand got crushed by a penguin with a hammer. I probably would've found you two earlier if I hadn't been trying to survive all of these things."  
  
Marie made a clicking noise with her tongue. "But they're locked in where they are, right?"  
  
Three nodded. "Yeah. I had to break another wall and fall about ten feet to where I found the Captain and Eight, but none of them can get to where I made the exit. They're stuck in there. That said, the machines making them were still going."  
  
"How many did you see?" the Captain asked.  
  
"I personally saw twenty. But there's evidence for up to _sixty_. That's not all. The AI? Hasn't stopped doing this at all. He just changed venues to elsewhere in the facility." Which was ominous. There were no files noting where he'd up and left to either, so they'd have to either find more on the subject or look by hand. And considering how damn big the place was, that wasn't exactly a fun idea. "These files also mention that however Kamabo came across the concept of 'Sanitization', it started with these guys."  
  
"And we can be sure that Sanitization isn't a good thing," Marie nodded. "Okay. We can investigate that later. Anything else you want to mention?"  
  
Oh, yes there was. The sole gleaming ray of light Three had managed to extract from this hideous growth on the world. It had screamed and kicked, but Three managed to wrangle this document from the damn facility with her life intact. "Oh no, she's doing the thing again," Callie moaned. "Mariiie, make her stop!" Nobody could stop her. Victory was hers. **VICTORY. WAS. THREE.** YOU UNDERSTAND?  
  
Marie reached under the table, pulled out a large rubber ball, and then threw it at Three's head. "Oi! No maniacal giggling in my house!"  
  
"Ow! Marie, I don't giggle!" Giggling wasn't cool. Three cackled. Yeah. "But fine, since you want to know... I found a list for the." Three glanced at Eight and Four before turning the CQ-80 off and remembered that this part of the Squidbeak Splatoon's mission statement was classified, even for new Agents. "The thing. You know."  
  
Marie silently repeated it to herself before inspiration hit her. "Oh! The thing! The classified thing!"  
  
"Ah! Yeah, that thing!" Callie yelled. "You know stuff about the thing?"  
  
"I know many things about the thing," Three replied. "It's not a complete list, but it's got enough on it that we can totally get by."  
  
The Captain nodded. "Hm, yes... Good work on getting that list about the thing, Three."  
  
"Ahah, I see," Eight replied knowingly, even though she probably had no idea what the fuck anybody was talking about at all and was probably just joining in. "The thing."  
  
"What the fuck are you all taking about," Four asked.  
  
"The thing," Callie clarified.  
  
"The classified thing," Marie clarified further.  
  
" _That isn't fucking helpful_ ," Four grumbled. That's the point.  
  
Marie laughed and kissed Four on the cheek. Which was annoying, because standards were supposed to be a thing. "Really, I am sorry. But this is an incredibly confidential matter. We can't let anyone know about it unless we have to."  
  
"If it helps," Three said in her smuggest, most condescending voice. "I only found out a few months ago, and I've been here for two years."  
  
Eight nodded respectfully. "Ah. Classified information. I understand." It was good to know that Eight understood the concept of need-to-know.  
  
"Anything else?" Marie asked. Three shook her head. "Alright then. Does anyone else have anything they want to discuss before we close for today?" Everybody made general noises that indicated that, no, they did not have anything else to discuss. "Okay. Debriefing complete. Onto other things, Eight."  
  
"Yes, Miss Marie?"  
  
Marie's face twisted like a pretzel acrobat. Which, incidentally, sounds fucking delicious. "Don't call me that. Just Marie. Do you have anywhere to live?"  
  
Eight made a face that that wasn't quite like a pretzel acrobat, but very close. Maybe a bagel gymnast or something. "But you're one of the Squid Sisters, I couldn't possibly act so familiar! And no, I don't."  
  
Marie looked at Callie. Callie looked at Marie. A telepathic conversation took place, which is _bullshit_ , since Three didn't have any siblings old enough to have telepathic conversations with. Their expressions shifted every few seconds, eventually resting on something like delighted and vengeful. Which was an oxymoron, as the whole point of vengeance was to be darkly bemused as you watched your victim's life fall apart into a million pieces, cackling wildly all the while as you escape with their lover and all their money.  
  
Woah. That metaphor got a little weird.  
  
Three needed to go home and sleep already.  
  
"Oh Threeeee," Callie sang as she moved to lean on Three's left shoulder.  
  
"Listen for a moment," Marie asked sweetly as she moved to lean on Three's right shoulder.  
  
"Oh, I am going to despise this, aren't I?"  
  
"No no no," Callie said with the natural-born innocence of a liar. "It'll be fine."  
  
"You'll love it," Marie said with the look a torturer might wear before they began work. "Trust us."  
  
"The only thing I trust either of you with is figuring out where I usually go for lunch and then raiding the place so I have to talk to you."  
  
"So hurtful!" Callie sobbed.  
  
"I can't believe you'd say such a thing," Marie growled. "Name one time we've done that!"  
  
"Every single day since I fought Octavio."  
  
"Lies and slander!" Callie replied cheerfully. "Listen... Eight said she doesn't have a place to live right now, you know?" Three did know. She was there when Eight said that.  
  
"Gramps is really busy these days," Marie explained sunnily. Three knew that was a damn lie, outside of Agent work, he sat around eating oranges and reading the newspaper. "And Four already has a roommate."  
  
"Damn right!" Four hollered.  
  
"And we're almost never home these days, so she'd probably never see us," Callie said cutely.  
  
"And she really would need somebody to help her adjust to Inkopolis," Marie said innocently.  
  
Imagine, dear reader, the loudest sound you have ever heard. Perhaps it is an alarm clock, or a fog horn. But all the same, it is loud. This sound is as pitiful, as tiny, as minor as a single molecule compared to the earth rending sigh that escaped Three's throat. It was a sound of acceptance, a sound that signified that one accepted their fate in the face of an invincible wall. It would echo amongst the rocks of Mount Nantai for the next one hundred years, until Three's great grandchild arrived, heard the mournful sound that had become almost synonomous with the region, and knew that it was the sound of ultimate suffering. "Fine."  
  
"YES!"  
  
"ANOTHER VICTORY FOR TEAM SQUID SISTERS!"  
  
Four gave Three a look. It was a sort of look that said that she sympathized with Three's plight, but also did not care enough to stop whatever the fuck was happening. Because she was a bitch.  
  
"What's going on?" Eight asked.  
  
"You're living with me for the time being, because the Squid Sisters are callous monsters from beyond the understanding of this realm."  
  
Eight stared for a moment before smiling. "Really? I get to stay with you?" Three nodded wearily. "Yay!"  
  
Marie laughed callously and handed Three her keys. "Here. I kept your apartment clean while you were gone." Yay! Home is good, home is great! "The landlord dropped by about a week ago and had some guys pull up all the carpet, since your building got filled with some kind of bugs, so you've got bare floorboards now. I suggest buying a rug at the earliest possibility." Cool beans.  
  
UH SHE MEANS COOL. Only _losers_ say cool beans.  
  
_Yeah_.  
  
"Thank you, Marie." Wait. Wait a second. "Does that mean what I think it means?" Was it over?  
  
Marie laid an understanding hand on Three's shoulder. "Yes, Three. You can go home. We can _all_ go home."  
  
"That sentence is so beautiful," Three choked out. If crying was something Three did - which was NEVER - then it'd be something she was doing right now.  
  
Eight jumped up to her feet. "Does that mean we get to go back to Inkopolis!"  
  
Marie nodded. "That's right." Eight laughed manically. "Aw, look at her having fun."  
  
Three stood. "Alright then. I'm gonna ditch you guys and head out then. I am tired and hungry and... No, actually. That's about it. Eight, let's roll."  
  
"Bye! Thank you for everything, Squid Sisters!" They stepped outside, into the cool morning breeze. "I can't wait to go to Inkopolis and oh no."  
  
DJ Octavio was awake. He did not look happy. He gurgled something in Octarian. Three was only kind of fluent, but she grabbed the word 'Idiot' in there. Three considered it a dangerous possibility that Octavio was like her - a smart person surrounded by idiots. Truly, mirrors were a respected force in this world.  
  
Eight spat something back violently. Three only caught the word 'doll' before Eight pulled the golden toothpick she'd shown Three earlier and stabbed it into the snowglobe. "You can have this back. I don't want it anymore." That was probably worth some kind of reaction. Or one liner.  
  
Three just flipped Octavio the bird before hopping through the grate.


	5. 10:00 AM - Agent Three Gets To Go Home Thank God

Three didn't _like_ Inkopolis Square.  
  
Let's get that out there right the fuck now.  
  
For one thing, it meant that all the decent Turf shops had moved from the Plaza. Annie had apparently gone into online business and moved downtown, Crusty Sean had quit Shrimp Kicks to start his delicious food business, Sheldon had moved to the Square to keep up with demand from new blood, and even Spyke had decided to skip out once business ran low enough. With only Jelonzo hanging around, it meant that there were very few reasons for people to go to the Plaza Lobby.  
  
It was more cramped too. A smaller space meant more people packed more tightly, which meant that Three barely avoided freaking out whenever too many people brushed up against her. It wasn't that crowds freaked her out. It wasn't. It was that... Look. Three already had a day job where people gossiped for far too long about celebrities, TV, random inane chatter and people's love lives. It was a hellish existence rivaled only by sneaking past Octosnipers and League Battle. And while she didn't begrudge people the things they enjoyed, Three would really like to not hear about any of that shit.  
  
Lastly, the Square was the new hot place for Splat Battles. Most casual battlers, from unfresh kids to totally fresh adults, came to the Square. Rankers as well, it was a pretty good gathering spot. Which, very unfortunately for everybody, meant that when the Plaza stopped being a central hub, it became a hub for the absolute worst type of Splat Battler... _League Battlers_. Obsessed with high level play and with enough bullshit jargon to fill a dictionary, they were probably literally actually insane. They threatened people who upset the balance of power in their little cult, and actively attacked people who even spoke about the concept of fun. Three would rather spend eternity in Ranked than a single second with League, meaning anyone who wasn't crazy was basically forced to jump ship for the Square.  
  
Three wasn't an idiot. Stuff had to change, or it didn't grow and evolve. The Plaza was outdated. And the Square probably was a good place for kids to Turf and hang out in peace. But it didn't change the fact that her first days as a Battler were there, waiting for her friends to arrive. Her proving grounds, you might say. Shopping at Booyah Base, showing off at the Battle Dojo, learning the ropes of Turf War alongside her friends... Geez, what would he say if he caught Three like this, waxing nostalgic like an old woman?  
  
Probably laugh at her, and then take her out for ice cream.  
  
Three checked her phone as Eight flipped through the grate next to her. Just past ten in the morning, according to this. Good, because it meant that they'd missed the 10 AM Rotation Rush. Okay... Counting when she'd last slept, she'd been awake for... Carry the three... Almost thirty hours. God, this was going to fucking ruin her sleep schedule. More ruined that it already was, mind. Either that, or she'd somehow cycle back around and wake up at a decent hour for the first time in three years. Maybe she should try to stay awake a little longahahahahaha you utter moron no fucking chance Three was staying up any damn longer if she had a choice in the matter.  
  
"Come on," Three yawned tiredly. "I want to get home before something _stupid_ happens."  
  
Eight nodded and followed Three out of the alley the grate was located in. Ten in the morning was different from six, so the sunlight kind of hit them both like a truck. Eight blurted something and then slammed her hands over her eyes. Ah. Living underground probably didn't let your eyes adapt to bright light, huh. Three sighed loudly and pulled off her Splashcloak before throwing it over Eight's shoulders. "Bwuh?" Three pulled the hood up over Eight's head and over her eyes. "This is... You trust me with this?" Trust her, Three can't believe it either.  
  
"Consider it an exercise in trust. Give it ten minutes or so, the Splashcloak will recharge for one full Splashdown." Eight made a noise of surprise. Which... Yeah? She had basically been given a gun to point right at Three's head, honestly. If Eight had any inclination at all to hurt somebody, then... Then Three supposed it'd be a lesson. If not, then hey, trust proven.  
  
Three was going to wake up tomorrow and fucking _scream_ at herself for being so reckless and stupid.  
  
"How many people are here? I only saw this many during basic training," Eight whispered. That didn't say much for Octarian society, did it. It was super different from this morning, loads of people out and about, ready to talk to Three and ruin whatever semblance of a good mood she'd managed to concoct for herself. Real good fun. Eight took one look at how many people were around and gave a weird smile that Three put down as cautiously optimistic.  
  
"Enough that it starts freaking me out," Three muttered. Then, more loudly, "Something like five or six hundred per day. I think. Not counting other Battle Hubs, not counting major events. If it rains the number drops down to two hundred or so, but that's just the diehard Splat Battle fans." Rain, contrary to multiple horror and scifi films, did _not_ kill Inklings. Yeah, it stung a little, but unless it was really actually pouring down, it never did more than just kind of cause a full-body itch.  
  
Eight gave her a stunned look. "Five or six hundred per day?" It... Yeah, it did sound like a lot when you put it like that. "Why?"  
  
Three pointed to the front of Deca Tower, to the twin-crossed arrows emblazoned on the front of the Lobby. The universal symbol of Splat Battles everywhere, Squidforce. "That's why. Splat Battles. They're a big deal up here among Inklings. And, I suppose, any Octolings that decide to make their way up here too." Hell, Three spied more than a few among the crowd. Two over by The Shoal, another leaning against the Lobby, even two of them having a dance off in the middle of the Square.  
  
"Splat Battles? What are they?" Eight asked as she adjusted the hood of the Splashcloak around her face.  
  
"Sort of a mutated tradition from the old days. After the Great Turf War, lots of people were paranoid about the Octarians returning. But by that time, only a small number of actual war veterans remained. Disease and injuries killing them off. A number of them realized it wouldn't be enough if Octarians returned, so they trained kids to be ready to take up arms just in case." Spawnpoints weren't nearly as common or effective back then as they were now. Even one Spawnpoint could help turn the tide back then. "But after a while, we just realized it wasn't going to happen. So kids turned it into a game they could play. Fast forward eighty years to now, and it became a professional sport."  
  
Three saw Eight mouth the word 'Sport' like it was a strange, unknown riddle from another realm. "Sport... You mean like a mock battle?" That... Well. Kinda sorta. Sports were practically constructed from the ground up to be about trying to mess with the enemy team in any fashion deemed legal. Which wasn't too far away from an actual fight. Three didn't like how well this analogy fit. "We had those in Mount Nantai a lot. Why are they so important up here though?"  
  
Three waved her arm at the entire Square. "It's an industry. One of the biggest, actually. Most weapons and clothing are designed with it in mind. Food companies get Rankers to advertise for them, companies pump out equipment made specifically for it, bands sign contracts where Squidforce promotes them in exchange for two full albums being released for official consumption, tourists are basically always coming in to get a good look at our," Three put on her most pedantic asshole voice. " _Artistic sporting events_." Eight giggled, and holy shit it was amazing. "And for various reasons that are way, way, WAY too stupid and complicated to explain without an actual guide on it with me, lots of places pay Squidforce - the sponsor for Splat Battles - a load of cash to make certain locations a Splat Battle venue. Not to mention, winning the battles themselves can be profitable in the long term."  
  
Eight nodded slowly, taking it in. "I see... So... Is this entire area dedicated solely for these Splat Battles?"  
  
"Kinda. It's more where you wait for your friends or your team to arrive so you can turf. The Galleria over there is a quartet of shops designed to set up any newbie with gear to start their career. Over there is The Shoal, but don't ask me what the fuck it actually does, I've never been in there. Crusty Sean sells normal food, but also certain meals and drinks that give effects, like increasing odds on abilities or giving you a boost for the next match. And I think that's it, honestly." Shops, lobby, Sean, what else... Was that really seriously it? Huh. She thought there was more. Maybe she was imagining it.  
  
"This entire area is just set up so people can do these Splat Battles?" Eight asked. "It seems wasteful."  
  
"Eh, it kind of is. To be honest, I think that's the _point_ of it. No food shortages, no power shortages, good work and good pay, hospitals are always open and there's universal healthcare, no housing shortage... As far as I know, there's nothing major that needs fixing..." The most urgent thing in Inkopolis that needs fixing or repair was Hammerhead Bridge, because that thing just... It was almost like it _wanted_ to collapse into the sea or something. "We live in a country that can afford to waste money on the problem. It's a sign of the times, same as Splatfest is. We can afford to just... Focus on having fun. Probably sounds weird to you, doesn't it?"  
  
Eight was quiet for a moment. Taking everything in. "You're right. It does sound weird. But... I think... I think it's the good kind of weird." She smiled brightly and walked alongside Three towards the back of the large Square. It was good to hear that though, considering she could've taken that entirely the wrong way. Hell, Three definitely would've taken it the wrong way. "I think I get some of these ads," she added on as she pointed at one of the electronic billboards. "Some are for clothes and some are for... Music, I think. But what are the others?"  
  
"The others?" Three glanced around. "The green and white squid one is for iShipit. They're a shipping company that delivers stuff around the country. Occasionally even overseas. That one is for the local mueseum, they're having an exhibit sometime this year... Oh, that's Crabbo Flakes. Advertised by Fabbo the Crabbo. It's a cereal. And the one with the pie chart next to the weapons is an advert for my actual job, the IWTA." It was advertised as a serious job for serious people with a desire to do serious work.  
  
Exactly zero of those qualifications fit a single fucking person Three worked with at the IWTA.  
  
"The IWTA? What's that?"  
  
"Inkling Weapon Test Association," Three replied grumpily. Because fucking hell. "It's part of the way Inktech weaponry is produced up here. Companies make a few prototypes and send it to us. We then put it through its paces, make sure it works, make sure it matches all the safety standards and Squidforce regulations, and if everything works, we mark it as AFP, or Approved For Production. We keep the prototypes though, solely for archiving reasons. In addition, the IWTA keeps in talks with Squidforce for safety regulations, weapon standards, general Splat Battle policies, all kinds of stuff." A heavy sigh escaped her throat despite her best efforts. "That said, sometimes the public gets the better of us."  
  
Whoever the FUCK started that fucking Special Replacement Act was a _dead man_. Woman. Three did not fucking care what their pronouns were. It'd taken a  month to navigate that mess, and if Three ever met the person who started it, she'd hunt them down and kill them in their sleep. The Specials had been fucking _fine_ before the moral guardian shitheads got involved. Anyone who was anyone could see the footage they used had been modified to make things look bad. But NOPE. Gotta bow down to the court of public opinion. Fucking morons.  
  
Eight let out a short gasp. "Really? You work for the main source of all weapons in the city?"  
  
"Yup." Half of the job was just making sure a weapon didn't break or explode the first time a kid decided to get innovative. If Three had a Coin for every time an idiot nearly killed themselves by attaching a Sub to their weapons with rope or tape, she could retire right now and not work until she was eighty. "It's a decent job, I'm not gonna lie. I get to see most new weapons before they hit the market, and I get to make fun of idiots who make absolute trash."  
  
Eight nodded slowly. "Yeah... It sounds like you really enjoy it..." Three did. She really did. "Do you think I could get a job like that?"  
  
Hm. On the one hand, Eight seemed like a good person. On the other, it depended on what her tolerance for idiots was. "It'd take a while to learn how, but yeah, probably. You're a good shot, you at least know the basic mechanics of a weapon... You'd have to take a two-month course on basic IWTA procedure, but yeah. You've definitely got the skill for it. All you would actually need is the certificate that says you're certified to work, and you'd be golden."  
  
Eight's cheeks did that weird colour thing again, bright red spreading across her face. "You really think I'm skilled?"  
  
"Yup."  
  
Eight pushed her tentacles to hang behind her ears and gave an odd smile. "Well. That's. Y'know." She made a couple of other sounds that are vaguely word-like, but don't actually manage the distinction of meaning anything at all, not even in Octarian. Three looked at her curiously. "I just. Weapons are. Cool." Yeah, they were, weren't they? Eight was cool like that. She got things.  
  
"I'd rather have you for a coworker than most of my current team," Three sighed. "You seem way smarter than all of them combined."  
  
Eight went more red. Man, that can't be healthy. Is it maybe an Octoling thing? No, she's seen Zoey do it before, when Mable started whispering to her. "R-Really? I'm smart?"  
  
"Uh, yeah?" She certainly wasn't a moron. "Smarter than me, I'll bet."  
  
Eight made several rambling noises before slamming her hands onto her cheeks. "That's! You! Bluh!"  
  
"Bluh?"  
  
"BLUH. That is what you are making me feel right now, Three." Eight gave a stern look. "Bluh." It would've felt more stern if Three felt like Eight could understand what the word meant.  
  
Three nodded anyways. "Bluh." She paused for a moment. "Eurrgh. It's way too hot out for comfort."  
  
"Feels just fine to me," Eight replied sweetly enough it would poison somebody. She yawned loudly and stretched up oh fuck what the shit. "Maybe you just can't stand the heat." She really couldn't. Octarian domes were fucking cold, and she'd gotten used to it.  
  
Three grumbled loudly. No particular words, just enough to let Eight know that she was annoyed. Judging by the devious giggle, she knew it and was reveling in it. "Whatever... I wanna go home. Hopefully the AC still works in there."  
  
"What is it like where you live?" Eight asked curiously. "I've never lived anywhere that wasn't the Sector 2 Barracks."  
  
"It's a tiny ugly place, but it has a bed. And that's all that matters." It was a crappy apartment with a crappy bed and a crappy pull-out sofa bed for when she couldn't be bothered to actually sleep in her bed and a crappy fridge and a crappy microwave and a decent laptop and a perfect kettle and if Three could just lie down for the next year and a half, it'd make literally everything perfect. "I shall rest within my ruinous tomb that I might slumber for eternity."  
  
Sadly a lie. Three had asked for time off work, and had used the excuse of a vacation to get time for her trip with the Captain. Unfortunately, that time ended in three or four days. Which meant she only got half a week to relax before going back to the daily grind. It probably said something about her general lifestyle that between nearly dying in a medical facility or going back to work, it _really_ should've been a harder decision than it was.  
  
"I wanted more information than that," Eight said as she poked Three in the cheek. The two of them wandered out of the west gate and started making their way towards the local train station, because fuck actually walking more than they had to.  
  
Three nodded. "Yeah yeah. It's on the outskirts of town. It's not a great neighbourhood, but it's got a great view of the seaside." It was also, if you put it on a map, the furthest place Three could afford from where her mother lived. But y'know, that's neither here nor there. "It's like five or six stations away from here, I think. Usually I walk from two stations away, because exercise is good."  
  
Eight's voice went tiny and terrified. "The outskirts? You live... You live on the outskirts?" She looked down at Three, which was annoyingly literal because she lived in a world of fucking _giants_ , and gave Three what was possibly the most concerned look she had ever seen. "Why didn't you say you lived in a cave?" What. No, seriously. What? Three was saying this way too much today, but what the actual fuck are you meant to say to something like that? Oh yeah, I don't live in a hole in the ground. Clearly, I am living the best life. God, Octarian society was fucking weird.  
  
Three wasn't gonna lie here. She kind of sputtered really loudly. Because that's not really a thing you can avoid in this situation? "I live in an apartment," she stressed firmly. "With a proper fucking kettle that makes coffee." Because let's all be real here. The most important part of living alone was being able to ingest copious amounts of caffeine, and then laughing in the face of everybody who asked if you were okay, because you were totally mature enough and smart enough to handle your own body. "When I said outskirts, why did your brain automatically jump to cave?"  
  
Eight went still. "... No reason."  
  
"Please don't lie to me so obviously," Three asked. "If you're going to lie, please have the decency to do it well."  
  
"... If you don't work, you're not worth the space to house you. I had two choices when I was old enough to carry an Octoshot. I could either join the military and work, and have a bed to sleep on. Or, I could refuse, and get thrown into the outskirts and live the rest of my life eating moss off the walls wherever I found it. You can understand which one I chose."  
  
 _What the fuck is wrong with Octarian society._  
  
"That is not even _remotely_ what that word means up here," Three emphasized, because fucking hell that was fucking evil. "It means that I live on the edge of town, near the city limits, in an apartment that isn't a god damn fucking cave." This was insane. How the fuck could anyone justify what Eight had just described?  
  
Eight gave her a weird look. Like Three, and by association, all Inklings, was the weird one. "Really? You just... Live there? In a house? Aren't the outskirts meant to be a punishment?" Three wanted to say so many fucking words to this girl. Among them were WHAT THE UNHOLY FUCK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN. Her face must have communicated it fairly well, because Eight made a face right back. "Don't look at me like that!"  
  
"I... Sorry, I just... That's not how the surface works. At all, it's not. I chose to live there, because it was quiet. Because it was out of the way. That's all. No other governmental ulterior motive, or whatever." Also, Three enjoyed being able to sleep without hearing eighty million cars drive past in the middle of the night for some reason. That was a plus too. "It's not a punishment, it's not a cave. We don't make choices for people like that. What you just told me is one of the downright most evil things I've ever heard in my entire life."  
  
Eight looked down at her boots. "... I see. I'm sorry. I should've known better."  
  
FUCKING WHAT?! What the fuck. What. The actual shit.  
  
Three was going to **DESTROY** Octarian society. Holy fucking shit, this was absurd. "Just because you don't know what something means, it doesn't mean you should've known better. If you don't know something, ask me. Or the Captain. Or those musician friends of yours. Or Marie and Callie. Or Four, if you're feeling really unbelievably desperate." Eight gave a weak laugh. Fucking hell, what Three was about to say was gonna sound corny as shit. "You're not alone anymore. I got the impression that those two friends of yours would take an actual hit for you, and the Captain cares about nearly everybody he's ever met. I dunno about Four, Callie or Marie, but you saved my life. Multiple times."  
  
Tears began appearing in Eight's white eyes. She sniffed loudly. "You... You mean that?"  
  
Three nodded wearily, accepting that this was yet another person she was going to end up uncomfortably defensive and fond of against her better judgement. "Yeah. I mean that. It's fucking infuriating, but I do mean that." Damn Three. Damn her for caring about other people's well being. "I'm not gonna let you stumble around in the dark."  
  
Eight made a noise that indicated Three had said something extremely meaningful but had no idea of what it actually was.  
  
Three hated noises that indicated she had said something extremely meaningful but had no idea of what it actually was.  
  
She let out a raspy sob and then threw her head into Three's shoulder and wrapped both arms around Three's body. Uh. Fuck. Shit. This. What is. Ah. Plans. Where are you, plans?! Mama needs you! This is bad. Crying girl. Hugs. No. Three is. Fuck. Argh. Cute girl. FUCK. NOBODY HEARD THAT. OUT OF HER HEAD. DAAAAAARGH. Okay. How do we. We need to fix this. Uh. Hero. Heroic shit. Words! Three needs words! Love! No. Bad word. BAD WORD in this context. Plans. GOOD WORD. STRONG WORD. FANTASTIC WORD. Smart Plans. AMAZING. MORE. Smart Word Plans. OUTSTANDING. PUT IT INTO ACTION. RIGHT NOW.  
  
"Uh..." Three lifted her arm to pat Eight on the shoulder. "There there?" Oh fucking hell, was it obvious Three had never served as anybody's emotional support before? Shit. Everything is _awful_. She wants to _die_. She wants to die so _fucking_ _badly_.  
  
Eight sniffed and let go to look Three in the eye. "Thank you. I. Nobody has ever said that to me before."  
  
"No problem," Three replied awkwardly. Emotions were something Three didn't really do. "It's, um. Fine."  
  
Eight chuckled. "Thank you." They walked in quiet for a long few minutes. "Um... Back to my original question. What's the place you live look like?" It defied description, but Three tried her best despite that.  
  
"Well... It's not too big. It's on floor eight of Flatfish Apartments. It was built a while back, some time in the sixties. It apparently used to have this zigzaggy carpet, but Marie said that's gone now. Uh... The walls are this really ugly green colour. It used to be in during the seventies, but it just kind of looks all faded and weird now. There's a bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet, a bedroom with a wardrobe, and the kitchen is in the same room as the living room. The counter just kind of acts like a pseudo-wall."  
  
"I see..." Eight nodded slowly.  
  
"I have a stupidly large and expensive TV that I didn't ask for, because Marie is an asshole. My fridge is an old fifties unit that keeps going on the fritz, and in a few years I'll definitely have to replace it. Which sucks, because it actually looks cool. I have this neato bright red electric kettle that was the first thing I ever bought with my own money. An old microwave that I sometimes heat up TV meals with, because cooking is awful. Uh, what else... Oh, I have a pullout sofa that I sit on to do paperwork. And I own a laptop that I never unplug from the charger that acts as a radio and a way to fake my having a life on social media so that I don't get fired. That is... About it, honestly." All that Eight needed to _know_ , at any rate.  
  
 _Nobody_ needed to know about the edgy teenage poetry in the back of her wardrobe. Not even _Three_.  
  
Eight dried her eyes and nodded to herself. "That sounds... That sounds really greedy."  
  
Relatable. Three actually hated how big her apartment was, but for some reason she couldn't find a smaller one anywhere. Maybe all the starving artists had stolen them or something. "It does. Honestly, I don't do much there anyway? It's more just somewhere I sleep and keep my stuff." If Three had an offer to move in somewhere smaller and more comfortable, she'd probably take it. Except. Y'know. Moving out would take effort. "But it's home."  
  
"... Sector 2 wasn't awful. It was fine. When I was just a child, I lived in this communal housing. It wasn't big, just me and twelve other girls. Purple walls, and stickers all over the place. I used to draw on the walls with crayons I found. I wanna be just like DJ Octavio! That's what I always said. I practiced rhyming every day so I could rap just like he could. But then I got my first assignment, and it was frontline operations. Front-Ops was generic grunt work. Nothing like the Sci-Ops or Support-Ops I was hoping to get."  
  
"Sounds rough," Three replied softly. Eight nodded and walked closer, her arm brushing against Three's. "But life doesn't always go the way we want."  
  
"No," Eight agreed. "It doesn't. Front-Ops was dangerous. On some days, we patrolled the area we were assigned. And other days, we guarded any area we were told was a valuable asset. The barracks were fine. Decent. Grey walls with tiled floor. Steel bunks, boots and uniforms in our provided trunk, and one personal item for morale on our bedside. I don't remember why, but my item was this... Small doll. One day it went missing, and I forgot all about it." She smiled sadly. "I still remember my bunk number, even. Floor 3, Room 6, Bunk 52. Eventually I got transferred to Sector 5 to assist DJ Octavio. But I still remember Bunk 52. I think it's because... It was the first place that was ever really _mine_ , and not something I had to share. It was... Home."  
  
"... Always hard to leave home," Three murmured. "Always hard to say goodbye to somewhere you spent most of your life. Even if you hate it."  
  
"You understand?" Eight asked.  
  
"... Yeah. I understand." Leaving home had been the scariest, most terror inducing part of Three's life. It'd been worth it. Part of her had been terrified that she'd burn out somewhere and die. That she'd just fall into nothing the moment she left. But she found a new home. Got a job. Became a somewhat tolerable member of society. And life was... Better. Not great. But better. "Hey, there's the station."  
  
It wasn't much of a station, really. A raised area of concrete, a ticket booth, a dozen benches and a metal roof overhanging the whole area. "Station?" Eight asked concernedly. "Like... A train?" Oh. Wait. Shit. Eight had mentioned a train down there, hadn't she?  
  
"Nothing like the horror show down there," Three soothed. "I promise." Eight nodded and moved her hand into Three's. Which. Guh. Fuck. She was. Zuh.  
  
 _Focus_.  
  
Three glanced at the rail map and train timetable next to the ticket booth. She hadn't taken this station before, so... Time to check. Okay, it was on the Viridian line... It was... ten forty, and they needed to connect to the... Cerulean line... so the next train to get home came in... Half an hour.  
  
Great.  
  
"Which one do we go to?" Eight asked.  
  
"This one," Three explained as she tapped her finger on the station in question. "We need the Viridian-Cerulean crossover, and the next train on that line only arrives in half an hour. So yay, we get to wait." Three turned to the ticket booth and pulled out the necessary cash to pay for the tickets. "Oi, two tickets to Chroma Station." A few seconds later, the tickets were in their hands. "Alright. Let's wait."  
  
"What are the tickets for?" Eight asked.  
  
"Nothing. The money that I used to pay for it though are what keep the trains running, so it's important that you pay for a ticket and don't just hop on like a jerk. Also, sometimes there are ticket inspectors, and if you don't have a ticket you can be given a fine." Three handed Eight her ticket, a small pink slip of paper with a train stamp printed on it. "Hang onto it, okay?" Eight nodded as they sat down on the benches and waited. Watching the day go past like this... She kind of got what her grandma talked about sometimes. It was peaceful.  
  
"YOOOOO!" _What the hell was that unholy fucking noise._ Three glanced over her shoulder and saw... Oh, it was those two popstar weirdos from the platform. Three does not remember their names, and she highly doubts she ever will unless they decide to wise up and release songs in a good genre, like swing, or jazz. Unfortunately they appear to be dressed like rappers, which means that Three will never accept them as anything other than complete failures. "Eight! What's up!"  
  
One was tiny, and wearing pink. Three decided to call her Tiny Pink. The other was tall and wearing... Uh. White? Oh, but her tentacles were green. So Tall Green. PERFECT NAMES.  
  
"Marina! Pearl! It's good to see you again!" Okay. Somewhat less perfect names. Now. Which one is which. Eight leapt up and cheered wildly. "Where did you two go?"  
  
Tall Green sighed. "Work. Our manager didn't care we've been awake all day, so we've had to do the news half asleep." How tragic. How _utterly_ tragic. Three had _so_ much sympathy. _So_ much. How _awful_. "So we just spent the last four hours or so trying to satisfy the producers. How was your morning?"  
  
"We almost died," Three replied carelessly.  
  
Eight nodded. "I met the Squid Sisters!"  
  
"And almost died," Three interrupted.  
  
"Not from the Squid Sisters!" Eight clarified.  
  
"True. Physical death is different from emotional death," Three said.  
  
"What is with you and death?" Eight asked.  
  
"The sweet embrace calls me."  
  
Tiny Pink laughed loudly. "Edgelord!" Three was going to kill that stupid tiny little brat. It'd be painful and slow.  
  
Tall Green shook her head. "Pearl, calm down. Stop teasing her. Why did you say you almost died? I feel like that's _important_."  
  
Not really, but apparently some people don't death defy often enough to build up a tolerance. "DJ Octavio," Three yawned. She happily ignored the shocked yell from Tall Green and leaned back in the bench. "Fought him. I nearly died. Actually, everybody nearly died except Eight. Possibly because she wasn't an idiot and didn't step in until near the end of the fight." And saved Three's life. Again. Fucking hell, man.  
  
Tall Green sputtered loudly. It was kind of like a broken chainsaw, was what the sound was like. "Why?" she asked tiredly. Wow, new record for Agent talk tiring somebody out.  
  
"He saw Eight and got pissed off," Three replied. "He had something to do with Kamabo, not sure what the hell it is yet, but we'll find it."  
  
Eight nodded determinedly. "I talked to him. I told him that I wasn't his doll to play with." She pulled her knees up to her chest and curled up into a ball. "I left my golden toothpick behind as well. I don't want any ties to him. Period." Tall Green nodded understandingly and sat down next to Eight, patting her on the back.  
  
Tiny Pink shoved Three aside, sat on the other side of Eight and sighed. "Man, I never know anything. You guys are probably dropping some _major_ info right now and I don't even know what it means." Oh holy shit, story of Three's fucking life. Three instantly felt a connection to this tiny gremlin child. "Is this like, part of your past or something? Or is it something else?"  
  
"He used to be our old boss," Eight whispered tiredly. "DJ Octavio."  
  
"The King," Tall Green continued. "He put Hypnoshades on us both. Brainwashed us both. But the Inkantation freed us." Three still didn't fucking trust that damn song.  
  
Tiny Pink nodded. "Ah. So a big fuckin' problem."  
  
"He's back under arrest, right?" Tall Green asked worriedly. "He won't get out again?"  
  
Three snorted loudly and pulled out her phone. "Hell no. The Captain is fucking furious with him, and it'll be a while before he so much as blinks near Octavio. I'd be surprised if he didn't practically glue his face to the snowglobe. I give it at least half a year before anything major or evil or horrible happens, so we're definitely good for the time being."  
  
"The time being," Tiny Pink snorted. "Any idea when that time's up?"  
  
"No idea," Three admitted. "To be honest, I'll take what I can fucking get."  
  
"Cheers to that," Tiny Pink replied.  
  
Three hated that she had to ask this. "I hate to ask this, but I have to."  
  
Eight picked up where Three left off. "They think they need to go back to Kamabo."  
  
"What?!" Tall Green asked in surprise. Which. Fair. "Why? It nearly killed us all the first time!"  
  
"Too many loose ends. Eight said you fought the AI of that place, and he's gone. Thanks for that, by the by. But there's still _way_ too much down there that we don't know about. Stuff we have to investigate. Lots of creepy nonsense, and I'd prefer knowing what the hell is down there than not know at all." That was Three's rule of thumb - She would rather know about whatever is happening now rather than later.  
  
"You can't expect Eight to go back down there," Tall Green growled.  
  
"We aren't," Three replied quickly. Eight let out a short breath of relief. "And she said she didn't want to. But me and my team still need to check it out. Leading back to my original question, we need your assistance with that at some point. On behalf of the Squidbeak Splatoon, when the time comes, we'd like your help and opinions on the matter to pick the place apart."  
  
The two musicians looked at each other for a moment. Ah, the only form of telepathic conversation that could surpass the power of siblings was that of lovers - a near expressionless second-long exchange in which all was spoken instantaneously. They nodded firmly. "If it means getting rid of Kamabo," Tall Green said as she crossed her arms. "We're in. I don't feel comfortable knowing we didn't fully deal with it."  
  
Tiny Pink sighed and nodded along with Tall Green. "Yeah... We started the job, huh? Better finish it. That's what my Dad always said. When's the shindig going down?"  
  
"Not sure yet," Three replied. "But sometime in the future. Also, I want to request that you either delete or lock any files copied from my CQ-80. Security reasons, nothing personal."  
  
"I want to take a look once we're brought into the loop," Tall Green replied. "Deal?"  
  
"Deal. Alright, I'm gonna lie down and die until the train gets here." Three leaned back in the bench and just listened to the world go by.  
  
Tiny Pink laughed. "Alright! Now that we got all that boring depressing shit outta the way... Eight! How're you doing?"  
  
"Fairly well. I, um. Cried a lot this morning. I remembered some things. Heard some other things. Feeling a lot better now, though." Funnily enough, a life goal that Three had already reached.  
  
Tall Green exhaled. "Good to hear it. You met the Squid Sisters? Aren't they the best?!"  
  
"Yes! They didn't sing or anything, but they're smart! And _cool_!"  
  
Tall Green gave a shrill squeal. "They're so cool! You've only heard Calamari Inkantation, right?" Eight nodded furiously. "They have _six_ whole other albums to listen to!" Eight gasped like she was trying to suck all air from the planet into her lungs. Go, world destroyer girl.  
  
"Six albums? **SIX ALBUMS**?" Eight made a noise with her throat that was vaguely concerning. "I want to listen to _ALL OF THEM_."  
  
"It's three hours worth of music, a track with an interview where they talk about how they make new songs, AND the original recording of the first time they ever sang Calamari Inkantation!" Tall Green replied in a tone that bordered on vaguely psychotic.  
  
" _Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh_ ," Eight repeated feverishly. "I was a fool! I should've asked them to sign my Octoshot!" A tortured wail broke free of her throat.  
  
Tiny Pink sighed loudly. "Relax! I'm sure you'll meet them again! Calm down!"  
  
"Yeah, don't worry! Tomorrow, I'll bring my Octopod and we can listen to their entire history!" Tall Green said happily. "We'll make a day out of it!"  
  
Tiny Pink nodded. "Yeah, totally! Oh, we can even take you out on the town, too!"  
  
"I would get to see the rest of Inkopolis!" Eight yelled happily. She lunged and wrapped her arms around Tiny Pink's diminutive torso. "Yes! Yes yes yes, I wanna go for a day out!" She sounded pretty happy about that idea. Good for her.  
  
"Oh, but wait..." Tall Green interrupted. "Eight, do you have somewhere to stay?"  
  
"Three said I could stay with her!" Eight explained cheerfully.  
  
"Callie and Marie are callous beings beyond our mortal comprehension," Three explained very helpfully. In no way was this sentence biased. "And I was blackmailed."  
  
Tall Green nodded slowly, though she did look a little concerned? Which... Fair. Three would be worried as well. HOWEVER. Right now, Three was off the clock, baby. Serious matters could wait until the sun imploded. Agent Three was not working right now. IWTA Member Three wasn't working right now. Lazy Three was in control right now, and she was going to make being exhausted a _motherfucking olympic sport_. "Are you sure? Pearl and I can help if you don't want to."  
  
"Nah. Besides, I already broke under the wave of Callie and Marie. Try as you might, you can not break something that is already broken."  
  
Tiny Pink shook her head. "You're weird, dude. Anyways, Eight. Tomorrow, we'll hunt you down, and we'll buy you some real proper clothes." Yeah... Eight kind of needed something that wasn't tight leather. "Because I'm gonna be honest, you... You really can't wear that stuff outside up here." Tiny Pink had a very good point. Three had kind of not really noticed, but she highly doubted what Eight was wearing would be considered decent anywhere.  
  
Eight looked herself over. "I mean, I want to get out of this outfit. But it isn't any worse than what I wore in the military... Why? This isn't acceptable?" Not for Three's blood pressure, it wasn't.  
  
Tall Green sighed sadly. "It's weird, I know. Inklings have a _thing_ about it."  
  
"Huh," Eight replied. "So I should dress differently?"  
  
"Just enough to satisfy people who might get mad at you. But Pearl is right, you can't wear that... You need a proper outfit," Tall Green said like a fucking hypocrite who was wearing her pants so low a slight breeze would knock them off.  
  
Tiny Pink slapped her hands together. "Shopping trip! Tomorrow! You, Marina, and me! We hit the town, listen to some tunes, shop til we drop. Hell, maybe we'll even tear up some turf. Who knows! You up for it?"  
  
"YES!" Eight cheered. Three could physically feel her jumping up and down in excitement. "Oh, but Three has to come as well!" What. _Why_.  
  
"What? Why?" Tall Green asked.  
  
"Yeah, why?" Tiny Pink followed up.  
  
"Three promised she'd get me a fancy cloak like hers!" Eight elaborated. Tiny Pink and Tall Green looked at each other in a way that could only be compared to overindulgent parents realizing they have made a terrible mistake somewhere. And yeah, Three _had_ mentioned she'd do that, hadn't she? Crap. Promises were promises. Three raised a thumbs up. "Yes! I like her cloak!" Eight yelled as she played with the edges of the fabric draped over her. "It's so swooshy!" Swooshy wasn't really a term that applied to the Splashcloak. It was more flappadaflappa than anything else. Swooshy was what capes did. And to reiterate. This. Was a fucking _cloak_.  
  
 _Yeah_.  
  
Eight hopped up and wrapped her arms around Three for a moment before stepping away with a beaming smile. "Guh? Uh, yes! Yes, yes, I, uh." GET YOUR FUCKING SHIT TOGETHER THREE. BADASS WITH NO SOUL. MERCILESS WARRIOR, REMEMBER? "Ahem. Yeah. We can totally get you a cloak. Won't let you pull of Splashdowns like mine does, that requires technology that's carefully controlled, but it'll definitely be cooler than anything else these losers make you wear for the rest of your life. Guarantee."  
  
"EDGELORD!" Tiny Pink yelled.  
  
"Quit lording those edges!" Tall Green laughed.  
  
"Shut up. When is this happening tomorrow?" Three grumbled.  
  
Tiny Pink shrugged. "Probably after ten. We do a talk segment in the mornings alongside the news."  
  
"It's settled then!" Tall Green said with a smile. "We'll meet up with you two at Arowana Mall tomorrow around ten, and go on a spending spree!" Oh goody gum drops. Three just absolutely positively could not wait to get up early. How magical.  
  
Three raised a hand in question. "I have a question."  
  
"Shoot," Tiny Pink asked.  
  
"What are your names?"  
  
There was a moment where Three imagined she might die. Tiny Pink looked on the verge of complete hysteria, while Tall Green wore an expression that suggested if she ever got her hands on a knife, it'd be a _really_ good idea for Three to skip town. Either way, Three did not give a fuck. Because that required effort. And Three was really tired of effort. "Are. Are you completely serious? I'm Marina, and this is Pearl," Marina replied in what might be the most terrifying voice Three had ever heard. "I texted you earlier, to check in on Eight? To make sure she was fine? You took _two minutes_ to remember I existed?" That was a lie, Marina loved lying.  
  
"I don't remember that."  
  
Marina pulled her phone out of her pocket. "I have the texts you sent me."  
  
"Sometimes I send texts to other people."  
  
Pearl laughed in a derisive way. You know the one. That specific way when you space out the time between individual parts of the laugh to sound as sarcastic as possible? That way. "Seriously? Show us your phone."  
  
Three handed it over. Marina scanned through it with a somewhat disturbed look on her face. "I texted you this morning. I _know_ I did."  
  
"I delete all texts to make room for gifs of cute animals."  
  
" _Why_ ," Marina replied tiredly.  
  
"So I have an excuse for deleting texts."  
  
Marina sputtered in frustration. Eight looked at the phone curiously. "Oh, is this a phone? I've never had one before. Can I look?"  
  
"Go nuts," Three replied.  
  
Pearl tapped her leg annoyedly. "Where the hell else should we go? I mean, a shopping trip is cool and all, but we need to do way more. No way we're just ending with one awesome day."  
  
Marina nodded firmly. "Yeah... Oh, what about a Wahoo World trip?"  
  
"Wahoo world?" Eight asked.  
  
"Roller coasters," Pearl explained quickly. "Loads of them. Personally, Clownfish Park is WAY cooler, though. Fairground games, awesome food, the loot!"  
  
Marina shook her head. "The prizes aren't the fun part of Clownfish Park, Pearl."  
  
"What, and the haunted house is?" Pearl replied.  
  
"It's fun!"  
  
"So are shooting galleries!"  
  
Eight giggled. "I wanna do everything! Can we?"  
  
"Sure thing," Pearl said. "Hey, I got an idea. Tomorrow, after we go shopping, we can hit Silverside Cafe and--"  
  
" _ **ABSOLUTELY NOT**_." Everybody looked at Three. "We will go to Silverside Cafe and give that _fucker_ more money over my _rapidly cooling corpse_." **Fuck** Silverside Cafe. Fuck literally _everything_ about it. Three _hated_ that _fucking_ building so much if it was legal to commit arson, she'd have done it years ago. That place was goddamn awful. Also, Three may or may not have gotten into a fistfight with the owner. "There's a diner place near Arowana, it serves milkshakes and burgers all day long, it's infinitely better than the waste of bricks you were suggesting."  
  
"A diner? What's the difference between a cafe and a diner?" Eight asked.  
  
Marina shrugged. "I have no idea, other than it's a restaurant."  
  
"Diners are large restaurants that you go to for breakfast lunch or dinner," Pearl explained patiently. "They usually serve full meals at reasonable prices. Meanwhile, cafes serve minor foods and drinks that could serve as a snack at lower prices. They're usually small places, and they're generally used as meetup spots between people." Everybody stared. Why... Why did she know so much about restaurants? Why?  
  
Eight nodded slowly, as if taking this information in. "I see. So a diner has a fuller meal in exchange for higher prices. Makes sense."  
  
"Plus, cafes usually have takeout. Which is why I was suggesting it," Pearl grumbled as she glared at Three.  
  
Three was not perturbed. "Silverside Cafe is fucking awful, and everything from there tastes like _cardboard_ or _poison_. We go to Ricky Mars's Diner, it'll be way better." It was better in both food and decor, to be honest. The only reason Ricky Mars wasn't a better known diner was that it didn't have a Splat Battle arena in the middle of it for people to gawk at while they had their food like Silverside did. "But aside from that, it's also closer to The Reef than Silverside is anyway, so you can continue any kinda shopping spree there if you want."  
  
Marina tapped her own phone for a moment. "Arowana isn't on rotation tomorrow... The Reef is on Turf first thing, Ranked around ten, and League around twelve. So that isn't really an option until two. We need a filler idea." Huh. Yeah... Hm. Well... Grgh. This was hard. Social event planning was hard. "If we spend two hours at Arowana Mall, and then go have lunch at this diner, I _think_ we can stretch being busy until twelve. But that's still another two hours between then and when The Reef will be free."  
  
"Check where the Reef is, see if there's anythin' near there," Pearl suggested. Marina nodded and scrolled. "But that two hour wait is... Oof. I know that Jewelfish Laser Arena doesn't open until six, and we definitely don't have the time for Amberjack Grotto, either."  
  
"Amberjack Grotto is one of the most expensive bars in Inkopolis!" Three yelled as she sat up. "How the fuck do you have cash for that?!"  
  
"'Cause I'm awesome," Pearl replied smugly. "But also, I'm not sure if Eight's underage or not. She might be seventeen." Eh... Fair point. Three only barely made the age cut herself, having turned eighteen a few months ago. But that was still a really _expensive_ bar. Like pay _thirty thousand coins for a single glass of wine expensive_.  
  
Marina paused. "Oh. Wait! Pearlie! The car! If we use that to get around, we can drive from Arowana to Inkopolis Square to get Eight registered for Turf Wars!" BAM. Awesome plan. Three honestly didn't know how the Octarians ever lost the Great Turf War if they were just clearly that smart. "Not to mention, if we drive, our time table gets way bigger than if we were walking!"  
  
"You have a license?" Three asked.  
  
"Pearl does," Marina said with no small amount of embarrassment. She chuckled weakly. "I kinda flubbed my test because I got caught up with how fun the car was to drive."  
  
"Nerd," Pearl said affectionately.  
  
Eight blinked and handed Three her phone back. "What's a car?" That was quite possibly the worst question yet. No, wait. Actually. If Octarians could make stuff float, why would they _need_ normal vehicles? They probably got around on like... Hover cars. Or jet boots. Or jetpacks on cars. Either way, it was probably way cooler. Also, Three looked at her phone and saw that all her contact names had been changed to some variation of keysmashing. Ahh, crap. Now she had to call everyone and figure out who was who again.  
  
"Four wheeled vehicle that travels on the ground," Marina replied. "No G-Diffusers or even Grav-Ion Discs on them at all."  
  
Eight made a face that projected equal amounts of thrill and terror. "That sounds nightmarish!"  
  
"I know, right?"  
  
Three lost the two to some kind of technical discussion. It may as well have been in Crustacean for all she could understand it. Pearl shook her head. "Marina does this a lot. It's cool that she's got another friend to talk to about science stuff though. It's all over my head."  
  
Three nodded tiredly. "Yeah. I've been to almost every place in Mount Nantai, and I still don't understand that stuff too well. All I know is that it somehow involves magnets."  
  
Pearl made an odd face and made a motion with her hand. " _Magnets_ ," she said extravagantly. For some reason, this was the funniest thing in the fucking world to Three. "I heard that on a TV show somewhere. Can't remember where, it was some scifi thing."  
  
Three recovered and sighed. "Ah, man. Been a while since I laughed like that. Aheh. Ahh... We were talking about stuff to do for Eight?"  
  
Pearl nodded and pulled out her own phone. It was... Possibly the most blinding thing Three had seen in her entire life. Imagine a phone case. Then bedazzle it. Dunk it in glitter. And then bedazzle the bedazzled parts again. Three imagined that simply carrying the phone made up like ten percent of Pearl's total weight. "Uh... Okay. So we're starting at Arowana, right?" Three nodded. "We stay for a while, head to this diner place of yours after... Then we head to the Square, get Eight registered and good to go for Turfing, maybe get a few fights in. Arowana at ten, diner at twelve, Square at one, the Reef sometime after that... Maybe one or two other things, and then we drop you and Eight off at wherever you live after?"  
  
"Yeah. Sounds good. Actually, I need to go grocery shopping. It's been two months since I was last home, so everything I have is probably out of date." Three sighed. Things just couldn't be straightforward, could they? Things had to be a damn problem. "I'll probably split sometime during the day so I can go do that."  
  
"What? Nah, don't do that, dude!" Pearl grinned. "We can go together! Grab some snacks, rent out a movie, and have a sleepover! Team Anti-Kamabo!" On the one hand, Three had a very firm limit on how much social interaction in a day she could handle. On the other... Gggh, all this social interaction was probably healthy for her sanity after spending enough time alone, huh. Fuck... Decisions. Three hated making decisions like that.  
  
"... Probably best I get used to people talking again. So... _Fine_. Sleepover. Team Anti-Kamabo." Three felt a shiver go down her spine like she'd just signed a deal with the devil. Like she had just signed away rights to telling people they couldn't come over to her home. God. This was somehow gonna make its way into Mable's fucking hands, and then Three would have no excuse not to let her and Zoey come over. "Eight would probably have fun. Hell knows she deserves something for what she went through."  
  
Pearl nodded slowly. "Yeah... She... She almost broke down a few times back in Kamabo. Being up here, it's real good for her. Hell, she seems healthier in general. Probably sounds stupid as hell, right?"  
  
"A little. But I get where you're coming from." Eight seemed infinitely better now than a few hours ago. Stress gone, a few laughs, it was like a whole other person.  
  
A dangerous grin spread across Pearl's face. Three realized, with only a second before Pearl spoke, that she had fucked up. "So... She's wearing your cape."  
  
"It's a _cloak_ ," Three replied firmly and ignoring any subtext that was there. "And she needed it because her eyes couldn't handle how bright out it was."  
  
Pearl made a noise that indicated she didn't believe a single fucking word Three said.  
  
Three hated noises that indicated that somebody didn't believe a single fucking word Three said.  
  
"Oh yeah? You just... Gave her your magical Splashdown cloak? Because you couldn't buy her a pair of sunglasses from the Square?" Three did not like what she was implying here. "Yeah. Sure. She totally needed it."  
  
Three sighed and looked away. "I'll admit, she's... Interesting. But she had a problem, and I had a solution. That's it. Nothing more."  
  
Pearl snickered loudly. "You keep telling yourself that."  
  
Three yawned and gave a half-hearted glare. "Whatever. I know what I did, and why I did it. You can believe it or not."  
  
Eight squeaked out something in Octarian. Marina gasped loudly enough to interrupt the conversation. "Seriously? Three said _that_?" Eight nodded and hid her face under the hood of Three's cloak. Marina looked at Three with a vague expression that Three couldn't really place. "You're an idiot. An idiot with her heart in the right place, but you're still an _idiot_."  
  
"What'd she say?" Pearl asked. Marina said something in Octarian, causing Pearl's eyes to bulge out. "Wait, she said that?" Pearl looked at Three with what could only be viewed as barely controlled hysteria. "Yeah. _Totally_. You didn't have any other reasons to give her your cloak."  
  
"I didn't," Three replied confusedly. "Also, can I get some fucking context?"  
  
"Nah."  
  
" _Hate_."  
  
A loud ding-ding-ding began ringing through the station. "Ah, that'll be your train," Marina said sadly. "I guess we'll see you two tomorrow for a shopping trip!"  
  
Eight nodded and hugged Pearl and Marina. "Yeah! It'll be so much fun! I can't wait!"  
  
Pearl grinned. "Don't get into too much danger, okay?"  
  
"Stay safe," Marina urged.  
  
"Okay." Eight sniffed. Three felt vaguely awkward as the three of them had a very close hug. There was a soft hum as the black silver and yellow train pulled into the station, marked with the Inkopolis Travel Bureau logo on the side. "I gotta go."  
  
"See you soon!" Pearl and Marina yelled. Eight nodded and joined Three as they stepped onto the train and took a seat. Three wasn't a super fan of Inkopolis trains. They were just too clean. Eight trembled and put her hand in Three's as her eyes darted around rapidly.  
  
Eight gave a slightly off-putting smile as the train started moving. A short jingle-chime of Calamari Inkantation played before a computerized voice sounded through the train.  
  
 _"This train stops all stations to - Inkopolis Plaza - starting with - Lime Station - followed by - Olive Avenue. Dartmouth Heights. Pine Street. Cobalt Boulevard. Indigo Street. Teal Street. Navy Port. Sapphire Park - concluding with - Azure Square."_  
  
"We want Navy Port," Three explained. "It's a three or four minute walk from there to my apartment. And the train will take ten minutes to get there, I think." Almost home. They were almost home. ALMOST FUCKING HOME.  
  
Eight nodded and leaned against Three's shoulder, simultaneously slipping her hand into Three's. "Cool..." She let out a tiny yawn, and holy shit that was an adorable sound. Fuck. Three was fucking doomed wasn't she? A loud beep came from Three's phone.  
  
Three pulled out her phone. Oh. Shit. She'd forgotten about her coworkers. Okay... Time to suffer.

  
**Zoey - 5:22 AM**  
Hey, what's up? Mable said said she heard noise, so I'm up investigating. Haha  
Hope your vacation is going well.  
  
 **Zoey - 5:56 AM**  
HOLY SHIT  
WHAT IS GOING ON  
  
 **Zoey - 6:00 AM**  
Hey! Something happened! Get in contact with me ASAP!  
  
 **Zoey - 6:22 AM**  
Granny hacked your phone and she says you're moving over the ocean.  
What's going on?  
  
 **Zoey - 6:40 AM**  
Are you okay? I'm not mad. Please pick up.  
  
 **Zoey - 7:00 AM**  
Please be alright.  
  
 **Zoey - 7:20 AM**  
just call us already  
dont be dead  
  
... There was one of those messages every twenty minutes for the last four hours. Fucking hell... She actually gave a shit. Why was Three friends with people who gave a shit? It made her feel guiltier when she had to give them bullshit.

  
**Three - 10:45 AM**  
im alive

  
**Zoey - 10:45 AM**  
!!!  
  
 **Zoey - 10:45 AM**  
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! I'VE BEEN WORRIED!

  
**Three - 10:45 AM**  
... cant tell you

  
**Zoey - 10:45 AM**  
What?! Why the hell not?! We thought you were dead! Me, Mable, Granny!! We're your friends!

  
**Three - 10:46 AM**  
i know  
still cant tell you  
if you were anyone else i  
i would lie  
i would say my boat home got caught  
or that i got kidnapped  
but we both know each other too well for that  
and you met me two years ago  
so you know that im not lying when i say  
i cant tell you

  
**Zoey - 10:46 AM**  
Are you serious?  
Those weird Inklings again?  
Or something else?

  
**Three - 10:46 AM**  
something else  
dont look into it please  
your my friend  
dont want you to get hurt

  
**Zoey - 10:46 AM**  
... Okay. I can believe that. And I won't look into it.  
I trust you enough for that.  
I hope one day we can talk about it.

  
**Three - 10:47 AM**  
okay  
one day

  
**Zoey - 10:47 AM**  
Get home safely, Three.  
Mable says hello.

  
**Three - 10:47 AM**  
okay  
tell mable i said hi

  
"Thanks Zoey," Three sighed quietly. Zoey was too good of a person to be Three's friend. Anybody else would've insisted on knowing the particulars of the situation. Zoey didn't really _care_. As long as Three was alive and not in the hospital, that was all she needed. Unfortunately, if Mable had actually said hi, then that meant the moment Three walked back into work she'd be beset by both Mable and Granny on what the fuck had happened to her.  
  
"Is that a friend of yours?" Eight asked quietly.  
  
"Sort of. She's not a member of the Squidbeak Splatoon. So I can't _ever_ tell her anything about what I do. Probably for the best. She'd worry herself to the point of doing my job for me so I didn't get myself hurt. And then Mable would get involved, and she's insane. Probably bring her favourite Inksprayer along with her. Granny would probably force herself in as well, because _nobody_ keeps Granny Burnes out of a problem. Outside of Agent work, they're... Basically my only friends." Three sniffed and gave a small smile. "I really don't deserve any of them."  
  
Eight smiled, and it was just as warm now as it was hours ago. "You help people, right?" Three remembered two years ago. Octarians trying to steal Zapfish from Blackbelly Skatepark. People screaming. Three getting people to the Spawnpoint. She nodded slowly. "Then you know why you're wrong." Maybe.  
  
The train pulled into Navy Port Station with a loud chime. "Here's our stop," Three sighed. "Come on." They got off the train and entered what Three both hated and loved in equal amounts. On the one hand, the station - and by extension, most of Navy Port and the nearby coast - was this really weird design. Inkopolis was already pretty patchwork, tradition and modernism creating a patchwork map where if you took the right route, you could basically travel through the entirety of modern architecture in a day.  
  
Navy Port took that to an artform. Practically every single building was different, and Three had no idea as to why that was. All she knew that it was really nice to look at on a surface level, but it absolutely ruined your ability to enjoy it once you actually realised how patchwork it was. "Woooow! It's so _pretty_!" Eight didn't seem to think so though. She skipped forwards, Splashcloak trailing behind her. "You live here?"  
  
Three shook her head. "Nah. A few minutes from here. It's good for exercise and morning runs. Come on." Navy Port was close to the coast, meaning that it was practically filled with beautiful views. As they walked down the road, Three looked over the horizon to see the ocean shining under the midday sun. Seafolk dancing in the waves, boats passing through to Port Mackerel. "It's not a bad place. Sometimes you can hear Clownfish Park at night, but y'know, that's just what you deal with around here."  
  
Eight nodded and spun around with a massive smile. "I love it! Oh! What are those?"  
  
Huh? Those are... "Flowers. You didn't have them underground?"  
  
"No. All we had were GESLs." That was not a word and Three refused to believe it was. "GESL? Genetically Engineered Sponge Lifeform? They were one of the only organic materials we had down there. Most other things were completely synthetic. So flowers and grass and trees... They're all so wonderful." Eight kneeled down next to a patch of flowers and ran her fingers over the petals.  
  
"I guess we'll stop by a flower shop tomorrow and pick you up some flowers then?" Three asked casually. Eight squealed and wrapped her arms around Three. Which. Y'know. Fine. It. It was. Fine. Cool. Everything was cool.  
  
 _Shut up._  
  
"Yay!"  
  
By the time they reached good old Flatfish Apartments, it was roughly eleven, and Three was rapidly realizing exactly how dangerous Eight was. Every time Eight stopped to look at something even _remotely_ interesting or shiny, Three stopped with her. Didn't tell her to hurry up or stop doing that, despite how desperately Three wanted to get home. She could actually see the building by that point, which really hit home how much patience she was showing this girl.  
  
Three usually didn't have the patience for cooking _noodles_. Why the hell she was letting Eight do whatever caught her attention was beyond her. But whatever - they were at the goddamn apartment building. They climbed up the stairs slowly. God, this building had too many stairs. Octarians had the right idea with slopes and ramps, fuck stairs. That was the one saving grace of Octarian civilization that Three could see - they hated stairs as much as Three did. Nobody liked stairs. Elevators were much more useful, and the fact that they weren't legally required in every building was a fucking disaster.  
  
"Here we are," Three sighed. Room 808 and oh god. 8-0-8? Are you fucking serious? She was destined to deal with this shit forever, wasn't she? Forever dealing with every piece of fucking nonsense that the universe threw her way. Like, don't get her wrong. Three loved fighting Octarians. But at some point she planned to retire and like, be a chef or something. So fate could go fuck itself into oblivion. Three took a moment to scream internally before opening the front door. "Welcome to the most boring home in the universe."  
  
Eight wandered in and looked around. "You live here?" Three didn't like that she sounded impressed by what could reasonably be described as 'Carefully Controlled Decay'. "It's so _fancy_."  
  
God, her standards were rock bottom. "Eh. Bathroom is down the hallway on the left, bedroom is opposite it." Ah. Shit. She should probably like. Be a decent host. Fuuuuck. She just... She wanted to go and die in her sleep already. "You, uh... Probably want a shower or something, huh? Food?" God, it'd been so long since Three had actually done anything resembling this level of social interaction. Years, she'd say.  
  
Eight nodded. "I, uh. Want a shower. Do you mind?"  
  
"No." Three didn't shower regularly anyway. Maybe later, to feel not like shit. Usually, she only showered once every two months. For efficiency. If she showered every time she got dirty, then she'd be wasting so much water! This way was much more eco-friendly. "Go for it." Eight nodded thankfully and made her way into the bathroom. Three sighed.  
  
Okay. Order of operations. Do shit. Be _smart_.  
  
First of all, Three wanted out of her damn Hero Suit. Like, it could do with some kind of wash, but it wasn't that bad, right? Three took a sniff and immediately resisted the urge to hurl. Okay, no. That got washed _tomorrow_. She marched into her bedroom and stripped out of the filthy Hero Suit and replaced it with bike shorts and a football jersey. Not even Turf Gear, just a jersey. And no shoes, because fuck shoes. And because Eight would probably want clothes as well, some pants and another jersey.  
  
Out in the main room, she pulled the sofa out so that it formed a bed, and then pulled a spare comforter and pillows from her closet and threw them onto the sofabed. Awesome. Good. Now check on food. Three scanned through the cupboards of her kitchen quickly. Pretty much everything was expired or out of date, with the exception of some flour, some sugar, and a pancake mix in a bottle. _Great_. Grocery shopping tomorrow was sorely needed, then.  
  
 **GOOD HOST STATUS ACHIEVED.**  
  
It was then that a _bloodcurdling scream_ echoed from the bathroom. Three sprinted towards the bathroom and slammed open the door. Eight was curled up in the showertub in the far end, just far enough from the shower that the water was barely sprinkling against her feet. Three didn't notice that first. No, what she noticed was that first, Eight had taken her Ink Tank off. And that second, she had been freaking out about not wearing it all morning for a _damn good reason_.  
  
Starting from just below her neck and trailing downwards was almost her _entire_ back torn open and covered in stained green ink. It stretched far enough to be considered a gaping wound, while not enough to be seen while she had the Ink Tank on her back. Hell, Three giving her the Splashcloak had probably helped her disguise those problems. "Holy fuck... Eight, are you..."  
  
"No," she said miserably. "I'm _not_."  
  
Fuck. Fucking fuck _fuck_. Three was acting like a baby for her tiny eye and ear problem, while Eight was dealing with _this_. Fucking fuck. "Wait here. I'll be back." Three ran for the first aid kit she kept in the kitchen. It'd been a gift from Marie, after Three had nearly died against Octowhirl. She'd never thought that she would need to use it. Joke is on fucking Three, huh? She ran back and got close. "Fucking hell... Why didn't you say you were hurt?"  
  
"It wasn't a problem," Eight mumbled.  
  
"Fucking _wrong_. You were hurt, and you should've told us." Three grabbed a nearby facecloth and wet it under the shower spray. Squeezed out the water so it was just damp. "Hold still, okay? This'll hurt." God. This was fucking shitty. Pearl and Marina couldn't have known about this. If they did, Three was going to kill both of them and make sure neither of them fucking respawned ever again. Three slowly wiped bits of the stain away, trying to be as gentle as she could. Eight whimpered with every movement. God... Three was finding bits of _plastic_ almost buried in her damn skin - places where it had healed over and then been uncovered by _other_ wounds.  
  
It was slow. Really fucking slow. If Three sped up at all, Eight made another loud sound of pain. "Why do you _care_?" she asked dully. "I was your enemy. I tried to kill you."  
  
"... Do I need a reason to care?" Three asked. "You need help. And I can give it. That's all."  
  
"I'm a _monster_ ," Eight replied in that same dull tone. Like she didn't matter. Three didn't like it. "I helped DJ Octavio steal the Zapfish two years ago. I stole twenty-four overall, and assisted in the capture of the Great Zapfish." ... Oh. "I don't deserve your help."  
  
Three chuckled lightly. "Really? A monster?" She held the cloth under the shower until the green ink washed off it entirely. There wasn't really anything she could do to get any more muck off Eight. "That's fine. I'm a monster too."  
  
"Huh? But you're a hero. You saved the Zapfish from us," Eight replied confusedly. "You fought Octavio."  
  
"Yeah. But that wasn't my intention. I wasn't in the greatest place at the time. Wanted something I could control with my own two hands. Felt like my world was falling apart. So I took that Hero Shot. And I pointed it at the freakiest thing I ever saw, and I pulled the damn trigger with a fucking smile. Never looked back." Three threw the cloth into the sink and pulled a small bottle from the first aid kit. Inkaid. "This stuff'll sting, okay? But it'll help the skin mend over."  
  
Eight nodded in agreement as Three tapped a small amount of the gel out onto her hand. Three moved her hand and began rubbing it into Eight's back. "Ow," she muttered. "Ow ow, ow, ow."  
  
"Told ya. Sorry."  
  
"No. It's fine... Do... Do you remember earlier? Back in Octo Canyon? When I said... When I said I was good and okay? I... I'm not." Eight sniffed loudly. "While you were looking for those Octoweapons, the Captain pulled out his dossier on Octarian soldiers. And I realized that however Kamabo took my memories away, they didn't see fit to give them all back." Three paused for a moment, because that sounded _ominous as all get out_. "It's like reading a biography. Born here. Studied there. Served there. Worked here. All clinical items, things off a list. But the moment I try remembering something that's mine and mine alone, like a favourite food or a hobby, or my _own fucking name_... It just... Flies out of reach. I know what they are. I know the answers. I just can't _say_ them or _think_ them."  
  
That... That sounds like fucking _shit_. That is actually the fucking worst. Wow. "... I don't even know what to say to that," Three replied. "Sounds like shit."  
  
"It is," Eight said with a despairing laugh. "It's so stupid. I just want to know my own name. But apparently, I'm not allowed that honour! Ugh. Kamabo can burn."  
  
Three nodded and rubbed in another lot of Inkaid. Two or three more. "I don't want to sound like an asshole, but if they erased your memories, they... Probably didn't keep anything that wouldn't motivate you to keep going forwards." Eight nodded slowly. "That said, you remembered the Inkantation, right? Means that you might remember them again one day."  
  
"... I really hope you're right." Eight sighed. "This stuff stings. How long until it's done?"  
  
"Just a minute or two more."  
  
"Distract me," Eight said quickly as she wiped a tear away from her face. "I don't want to think about that topic anymore." Alright, uh...  
  
Oh. There was a good topic. "What kind of food did you have down in the underground?"  
  
"Soldiers like me got Nutrition Blocks. Civilians got normal food. Mostly kelp and vegetables. Some synthetic meat, which was made of vegetables and packed with the nutrients real meat would give you." Eight gave a wry glance over her shoulder. "Of course, anyone who lived in Central got fresher food with more variety. _Nothing_ to do with money or status. _Purely_ random chance, you understand." Of course, purely random... Random like a Charger shot. Three knew that somebody in Octarian society had to be corrupt as fuck. Granted, she'd thought it was Octavio for a while, but he was turning out to be more complicated than anyone had thought.  
  
"Hm. Well, you kinda hit the food jackpot. Inkopolis is a super multi-cultural place. Out in the counties, it's more traditionally Inkling, but here in the city, it's a melting pot. You've got Coronance style pastries and cooked meats, Seafolk originated salads made of loads of veggies and plants, Urchinese with loads of noodles and bread, the Crustacean Union makes loads of deep-fried stuff that's warm and crunchy, we Inklings do a lot of sushi and seafood, and Nemonian is generally _weird_ , but it is - with very little exception - the _best_."  
  
Eight looked at Three over her shoulder as Three applied another layer of Inkaid. "The best? Really?"  
  
"Yeah. I was born in Nemone, and my family moved here to Cephink when I was... Ooh, I wanna say I was ten? But all the food there was the best. Vegamight spread on toast, smarties, splatim-tams, fairy bread, lamingtons. Sometimes, we went out for Maccas and got some hashes with fries, which were delicious, they just don't make 'em similar over here. And that's not mentioning the most important Nemonian meal... The Meat Pie." No meat pies existed in this household. They were eaten the moment of discovery. "Don't get me wrong, I love it here in Inkopolis. I just wish I could get a hold of most of that stuff without getting it shipped."  
  
"All this food sounds delicious! I want to eat all of it!" Eight said excitedly. Good to hear, she'd sounded miserable for a while. "How much of it can we eat tomorrow?"  
  
"There's definitely space for a few pitstops," Three replied. "We're definitely stopping at MakoMart near the end of the day though, because almost every item of food in this house is past the expiration date. So we can totally pick out some stuff you want while we're there."  
  
"Yes!" Eight cheered.  
  
Three finished applying the Inkaid and moved to turn the shower off. "Almost done. Just gotta bandage those wounds of yours."  
  
"... Thank you. I... I'm sorry I..."  
  
"Don't. Don't say you're sorry for being hurt. That's fucking stupid. I don't know why you got that big fucking back wound, and I honestly don't think I _want_ to know how it's possible." Three grabbed the roll of bandages. "But don't be sorry for it. Okay? I'm gonna bandage this up now. Try not to freak out, the pain is just temporary." Eight let out a tiny whimper as Three applied the bandages as gently as possible. It was slow, and occasionally Three had to stop just so Eight didn't get overwhelmed by the pain. But after what felt like forever, it was done. "That good? Can you breath?"  
  
Eight inhaled shakily. "Yeah. I can breath. Will it hurt for long?"  
  
"Hopefully not. By tomorrow, it'll just kind of ache, I promise. And the day after, if it isn't totally healed, then it'll be just a little itchy." Three sighed loudly. "Hold on. I'll be back with some clothes for you that aren't fucking wet or covered in your own fucking blood." And with that, Three rushed out of the bathroom. God. Three grabbed the pile of clothes she'd made and rushed it into Eight's hands.  
  
"Thank you." Eight smiled weakly. Three nodded and walked out of the room to let Eight change in peace. In the meantime, Three leaned against the kitchen counter and yawned. She'd make coffee, but she didn't have any of the ingredients. The only thing possible to make was pancakes, and that would take Too Long and would prevent Three from Sleep. So fuck that.  
  
After a few minutes, Eight wandered out of the bathroom wearing the jersey and pants. "Feeling better?"  
  
"A little," Eight admitted.  
  
"Mm. Good. Means the Inkaid is working." Three gestured at the sofabed. "I pulled this out for you. Place to sleep."  
  
Eight sat down on the edge and nodded to herself. "Thank you."  
  
"No problem. Pillows, comforter, knock yourself out." Now to go knock herself out. "See ya in the morning." _BED BED BED BED BED BED BED BED._ **YEAH**. **_BIG SLEEP. BIG SLUMBER._**  
  
"Um." Fucking what. "I... I don't..."  
  
Three turned and looked at Eight. "Yeah?"  
  
Her voice turned tiny and fearful. Even without those ridiculous boots, she was still like a few inches taller than Three, but right now she definitely didn't look it. "I don't want to be alone." ... Fine. Y'know what? Three can fucking deal with that. Fine. Whatever.  
  
"Hold on. I'll be back." Three marched into her room, grabbed her big cozy blanket and a Zapfish plush off the bed, and marched back into the living room. "Shove." Eight shuffled across the sofabed and pulled the comforter up over herself. "I officially don't give a shit about where I sleep. This shall be the last sixty seconds of the day." Three hopped onto the sofabed opposite Eight and threw the big red blanket over herself before settling down.  
  
Eight did that colour thing with her cheeks and laid down next to Three. There was a bit of distance between the two of them, the sofabed was pretty big. Three officially did not care about any implications. Her brain was fucking done until she woke up tomorrow. "Thank you," Eight whispered.  
  
"No problem," Three replied. She pulled out her phone and threw a tweet onto Sea-Twitter, a social media platform based off one the humans used centuries ago. The template had been recovered from a recovered human server some years ago. The only real difference between Sea-Twitter and the Twitter humans used was that the Sea-Twitter logo was a seagull.  
  
 **Death Comes Thrice** _@iwtatrinamorg_ \- Just now  
I'm fine and tired. The last week has been hell.  
Nobody talk to me until I talk to you.  
  
The clock on the top of the phone said the time was now 12:02 PM. Fucking hell... Three threw her phone onto the arm of the couch and then wrapped her arms around Lil Ray the Zapfish, and then went the fuck to sleep. The last thing she saw before she went to sleep were Eight's white eyes drifting shut.  
  
Tomorrow, the world could go to shit and explode. Three was _fine_ with that.  
  
But today?  
  
Today, the world was going to stay calm and safe because of what Eight had done.  
  
Three was cool with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its doooone
> 
> The next story of Into The Light will be... The as of yet untitled shopping episode, where I solidify the main outfits of Three and Eight. Also, there will be worldbuilding about clothing in general, Splat Battles, and a variety of other things.


End file.
